Tiny Vessels
by arcadie
Summary: Chapter Fifteen. At age eight, David Michael could not stand the sight of his stepsister, Karen. Now, at age seventeen, he's having some weird dreams about her. Sometimes, you have to give up so no one gets hurt.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: _I don't own.

_Author's Note_: To be honest, when I planned to start out writing in this fandom with a slash story that would probably not include Karen, who is a definite _un-_favorite of mine. Then again, the muses work in strange ways and this particular plot got to me first. While, technically, Karen and David Michael are not blood-related siblings, they are siblings nevertheless and if the idea of kosher incest (hah, is there such a thing?) creeps you out, really, don't bother telling me. I chose this story to write for its mildly questionable moral issues.

Oh, and I uploaded this story onto this penname after finding out that my e-mail for the other one was dead, therefore no alerts. So sorry for the first reviews I've lost! I really appreciated them and thanks McKay for pointing out that it's Myriah, not Mariah!

**: Tiny Vessels :**

It was freezing. That was the first thing that registered in my head when I woke up. The second was that the sheets were…well…

I balled them up, swearing under my breath as I did so, and carried them quietly down the hallway. I paused, briefly, by Watson and my mom's room but heard nothing. I padded down the stairs, tripping over Shannon's tail, who gave a disgruntled noise and went back to sleep, surprisingly. Then again, she was old now and ceased to follow me around like a third leg and I kind of missed it more than I thought I would.

Turning on the light in the laundry room with my elbow, I opened the washing machine and stuffed the sheets in. I turned it on and leaned against the wall, eyes closed. It had to be at least three in the morning. I slid down to the tiled ground, trying not to recall the dream that I had been having. Okay, so I'm a guy. This sort of thing happens to guys all the time. I shouldn't be so worried if it wasn't the third damn night in a row. _In a row!_

"Jesus," I muttered, rubbing my palms against my eyes. It wasn't even the fact that I was sitting on the floor of the laundry room, freezing my ass off, and doing my own sheets that was worrying me. It was, to put it delicately, the subject matter.

To be honest, I really found Karen annoying as hell at first. And by "at first" I mean the first five years of my mom's new marriage. She was bossy and spoiled and followed around Kristy like a bad infection. Every other weekend she would plague us (well, probably just me) with her overly loud voice and her cockiness. Then…I don't know what happened. As we started to go to the same school, I started to find a few more things I had in common with her. We'd take the same classes, since she skipped a grade and all, and even help each other out with homework. Well, more like me bribing her to write my papers for me.

Then, after her mom and her stepdad, Seth, split, Karen got strangely quiet and weird. I can't swear, in good faith, that I _really_ missed the oldKaren but it was enough to make me concerned about her. I mean, she's my sister, right? Stepsister, sure, but we _had_ been part of the same family since we were in second grade. Karen moved into our house full time, after what Watson alluded to was a series of extreme fights with her mom, starting freshman year of high school. That was two years ago and now we were nearing the end of our junior year in high school.

And I can safely say that I like who Karen is now more than any other time I can remember. She was quieter than she was before but wasn't a silent, brooding sort of person. She still laughed and talked and functioned like a normal, non angst-ridden human being, which was a plus.

I felt my eyelids starting to close as the rumbling of the washing machine droned on. And I realized I had spent the last fifteen minutes musing over my stepsister, which could be considered kind of weird but hey, she's my sister, right? Of course I'd think about her sometimes.

* * *

The next thing I realized was a foot prodding me in my side. I had slumped over and had fallen asleep next to the laundry machine. I opened one eye to find Watson standing over me. 

"Hey, what's up?" I croaked. He just stared at me for a second.

"I'm not even going to ask," he muttered, opening up the dryer, looking for a pair of socks.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Nearly eight. Don't you have to go to school by eight thirty?"

"Shit!" I yelped. I ignored Watson's reproving look for language. I mean come on, who _doesn't_ swear? Especially when they have thirty minutes left to go to school and it's a good twenty-five minute drive? At least? When the conditions are nice? I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and burst into the bathroom as Karen was on her way out.

"Up early, I see," she said. She was already dressed and ready to go so I didn't know what she was talking about. It wasn't until I was brushing my teeth that I realized she was being sarcastic; I admit that I am a little slow in the morning. Karen was leaning against the doorway, watching me.

"Nugh." My mouth was full of foam from the toothpaste. I spat it out.

"Hannah's giving me a ride so you can be late if you want. Need me to cover for you?" I shook my head.

"I'm not going to be late," I said. Her blonde eyebrows rose in disbelief.

"Well, I'll think of something if you are." I was about to counter her again but realized there was no point because she had already left.

* * *

School is actually enjoyable. There's nothing really great about it but then again, there's nothing glaringly awful about it either. Like I had predicted, with a breakfast on the go, I wasn't late and had arrived at school with two minutes to spare. It was lunchtime now and I was heading towards my usual table. Hannah and Karen were already seated there, as well as Nick, Jackie, Myriah, Erick, Lindsey, and a couple more drifters who occasionally sat with us. 

All I know is that it had something to do with Pamela and Leslie getting rezoned into another school and Karen suddenly learning that nobody likes a bossy bitch that she floated up the social hierarchy to settle at the top. Jackie, being the class clown, and Myriah have always been popular and, I'm not sure, I guess Nick and I kind of joined them near the end of freshman year. Erick and Lindsey DeWitt we became friends around the same time. There were several other random floaters that sometimes we hung out with, like James and Buddy, but for the most part, we were the main group. Sure I liked to ignore that kind of social ladder thing but that didn't make it go away. And I won't lie; sometimes it's nice to be at the top. It sure as hell beats being at the bottom, that's all I can say.

"I told you I wasn't going to be late today," I informed Karen. I slid into the seat next to her and my hand brushed against her bare arm, making my stomach drop a little bit. I shrugged it off. Maybe I was hungrier than I thought. Karen merely shrugged and thoughtfully snapped her carrot in half, chewing on it slowly.

"One more week of school left." I glanced over at Nick, who had said that. He might as well be a clone of his older brothers; he looks so much like them. If you exchanged him with one of the triplets and presented the three to me, it would probably take me a minute to realize.

"There's a party going on at your house, right David?" Jackie asked. Jackie still insisted on being called…well…Jackie, even though made him sound like a girl or about five years old. Or both. A five year old girl.

"What? Yeah, I think so." I glanced over at Karen in silent questioning.

"Dad and Elizabeth are probably going to be spending the night at Elizabeth's parents' place," she said. Karen was methodically peeling her string cheese into tiny strands and dropping them onto her paper plate.

"Whoa, wait a minute, so there's going to be no chaperones?" Myriah asked. It's funny, the story with her. Myriah had endured the first fifteen years of her life with her stage mom pushing her to do every little thing that came her way. Now Myriah basically got her to back off so she can live her life. I think most of the boys in the school were more excited about that than she was because she's really hot and now she actually has the time to go out.

"It looks like it," I said. "Unless Kristy decides to drop in that weekend but I doubt it. She's kind of busy lately."

"Sounds good then," Erick said, smiling appreciatively. He fingered the collar of his polo shirt. He was a stereotypical prep from his popped collars to his sun-lightened spiked hair. He actually looked a lot like his sister, Lindsey. She was wearing a white polo that offset her tan and her blonde-streaked hair fell in clean lines below her shoulders. I admit it:I take a closer notice in girls' appearences than guys'.

"Your guys' house is huge so it'll be all out," Lindsey said. She was smacking on some lip stuff, whatever they're called, and it smelled fruity.

"All out," I echoed. At that moment, I chose to look over at Karen for what seemed like no apparent reason and she was looking back at me with an expression I couldn't quite interpret. I bit into my sandwich and dropped my gaze.

* * *

A/N: Super slow beginning. I apologize. This is all for now. I really want to get this written but it's extremely frustrating when you can't stand the canon of one of the characters (i.e. Karen). Oh well; thanks for reading. 


	2. Chapter 2

_Standing Disclaimer because I am extremely lazy: _I don't own. Title belongs to Death Cab for Cutie.

_Author's Note_: Thanks for the reviews. I love them so keep the feedback coming. I love rambling reviews so feel free to do so ("stream of consciousness" as my English professor would say). Italics mean flashbacks (with shifting POVs).

**: Chapter Two :  
**

_When I was crying, I kept thinking it was really just my fault. I was the one who screamed and made a brutal mess out of what was already a hopeless case. But what the hell were they thinking going ahead with it? Divorce is fun when you're seven, optimistic, and a moron. It's fun when you think Karen Two-two is an acceptable nickname. Divorce is not so fun when you're fourteen and realize that your mom wasn't who you thought she was. I should have been laughing at the whole thing. Knocking down the double-standard, right? Guys can have mistresses and so should women. _

_But cheating on Seth? What the hell was she thinking? No, really. What was she thinking? I was thinking, this whole time, that my mom was the most reasonable person in the world, a total square, and then she goes and does something like this. And then she turns it on him, saying that if she had enough 'attention' at home, she wouldn't have done this (which made me want to boil my brains, just hearing that, by the way). And she expects me to accept this and still be on her side? _

_I wanted to be. I mean, she's my mom and all, right? Of course I wanted to be on her side. But when they made me stand there, listening to them argue while Andrew was sitting upstairs in his room, trying not to hear…the whole time my mom was screaming and raving at Seth who was sitting on the couch, very quiet, with his hands on his temples, like he was trying not to implode or something. And then my mom says that she'll leave. She wants to live in a hotel until the divorce is figured out. She tells Seth that Andrew and I are going with her and at that, his head snaps up. _

"_You aren't serious," he said._

_I personally think that it was Andrew that he was going to miss, not me, but for some reason, it kind of made me appreciative of him. Maybe it was just because I had the feeling that I wasn't going to see him around anymore. _

_I remember staring at both of them and suddenly sprinting up the stairs. I told Andrew that we were going to Dad's early and he seemed to spring to life. He handed me my usual duffel bag. I realized that this whole time, he hadn't been just sitting in our rooms; he had been packing. I hadn't really hugged him in a long time, ever since he entered fifth grade and became too tough for affections from anyone (except maybe Kristy, who he still adored) but I had to hug him really hard for a minute and grab his hand. _

_  
I told Seth and Mom that we were going to Dad's and I completely ignored the fact that I didn't really know how to drive. I grabbed the keys off of the counter and just left. I think both of them were in shock, or else there was no way that we could have made it further than the driveway without one of them jumping on the car hood to stop us or something. But we were off and I was scared out of my mind, my leg shaking the whole time as I pressed on the accelerator. I tried to remember everything that Kristy had said that one time she took me driving in an empty parking lot for fun._

_Going a steady 25 mph the whole way, we somehow made it to the Big House. It was pretty late, maybe around midnight, and it looked like the house was sleeping except for one lighted up window, which I guessed was David Michael (he was David already, by then). I asked Andrew to try and hit his window, figuring something like a game would distract him long enough to stop silently crying. I didn't want any questions from anyone, especially not David. He'd probably laugh at both of us for taking it so hard or something._

"_What the hell are you guys doing out here?" _

_He had let us in through the backdoor, which was a lot quieter than the front doors. _

"_Midnight drive," I said. _

"_Whoa wait a minute, you _drove _here!" _

_He was completely in shock. If it had been any other time, I would have reveled in knowing that he had stubbornly hidden the fact that he was impressed. At this point and time, though, I didn't care._

"_Yeah," I said, trying to play it off. All I wanted was to be in bed where it was nice and quiet. "We decided we wanted to come a little early. I'm going to bed. Night." _

_He looked suspicious but followed us as we snuck up the stairs and into our respective rooms. I figured Andrew would fall asleep right away. He was already stifling yawns by pressing his fist against his mouth. By the time _I_ was eleven, I was already a night owl but Andrew still started nodding off at ten-thirty. _

_Unlike Andrew, I was finding it ridiculously hard to sleep. I was sitting on the short stool right by the window, looking out to Hannah's house. I kept considering whether or not to call her. I couldn't tell whether she was sleeping or was out. To be honest, I wasn't in the mood to see her but I wasn't in the mood to be crying by myself like some sort of soap opera character either. After knocking Hannah off the list, I considered calling Kristy. I wished that she wasn't in New York, busy with school and her life and that she was here so I could crawl into her bed. It wouldn't even matter if she was asleep. I could just fall asleep next to her and she'd wake me up in the morning for maybe an early morning jog or to make pancakes. After I got her answering machine three times in a row, I gave up._

_I wasn't sure when my door opened. Maybe I had been sitting, prone except for the occasional sniffle and swipe of the sleeve across my runny nose, for thirty minutes or maybe two hours. But my door opened slowly and someone padded into the room silently. For a wild minute, I wondered if maybe Kristy _was_ home but it was nowhere near the holidays and she had already been home the weekend before last. It was too early for her to come again. _

_Whoever it was knelt on the ground on his knees in front of me and seemed to just watch as I cried. _

"_What happened?" David asked. "Was it really that bad?" _

_I couldn't talk but I nodded and then realized that he might not have seen that. He didn't say anything else but kept watching me cry like that and I didn't even care, that's how miserable I was. Any other time, I would have kicked him out of the room, yelled at him for even coming in without knocking or asking. I vaguely wondered how Mom and Seth were taking it. They were still probably sitting in the living room, shocked. Or maybe they went back to fighting. Obviously Andrew and I were Dad's problems now, considering they hadn't called or anything. Maybe they just had too much on their minds as it was without two kids trailing them around, wondering what was going on._

_I didn't even bother wiping my eyes or my nose anymore as tears rolled down my face. I expected to hear David's usual laugh but it never came. Instead, he pulled his own sleeve over his hand and used it to carefully wipe my face under my eyes and even dabbing it a little around my nose, which, I think, was pretty generous. I know I probably wouldn't have done the same for him. _

_Maybe he couldn't think of something to say so he hesitantly put his arms around me and I realized I was crying into his t-shirt. We were about the same height, with me on the stool and him on his knees and he held me as I just cried until I thought my body was going to keel over from dehydration. And then I just cried some more. _

_I cried not really because my mom had made such a bad mistake but more because I was actually ashamed of her for the first time in my life. I cried because I knew that Andrew liked Seth and Seth liked him too and they probably wouldn't see each other so often anymore. I cried because Kristy wasn't home and I was really getting the craving for her blueberry pancakes. _

_Somehow David made me get up and walked me over to the bed, supporting me as though I couldn't walk properly on two legs, and I lay down, wanting my comforter to just swallow me whole. He didn't even leave after that; he stayed with me, lying next to me on the bed, occasionally brushing something wet away from my face. I finally fell asleep after what seemed like ages._

_I woke up the next morning around seven, despite the fact that I had fallen asleep probably around two in the morning. David was gone and I still wanted pancakes. I quietly made enough for everyone except Elizabeth and Dad, who were already out. My pancake making skills are really nowhere near Kristy's, babysitting extraordinaire. She must have some sort of secret talent for building forts, making snacks, and learning (and remembering) about a million different card games. _

_My pancakes were lumpy and watery at the same time and the sides were burnt. When I was on my fifth pancake (by that time, they were starting to look a little more like proper pancakes), David stumbled into the kitchen. He ate three pancakes silently, not complaining once about how awful they were, and told me he'd take over the pancakes so I could get ready because we were leaving for school in fifteen minutes._

_

* * *

_

I won't lie; I was falling asleep in every class due to my lack of sleep for the past few days. Last period was P.E. and I wasn't in the mood to go into a sweaty changing room that smelled like sweat to shower, only to run around after some ball, getting all gross all over again. I grabbed my backpack and casually slipped out through the backdoors of the gym and was sitting on the wall at the back of the school before my gym teacher would notice.

"Hey." I looked up. It was Nick.

"What are you skipping?"

"French."

"I thought you stopped taking that."

"I _will_ stop taking that," he corrected. "What about you?"

"Gym."

"Why the hell are you skipping gym? That's like the best part of the day besides break."

He would think so. Growing up with three older brothers and always trying to keep up with them caused Nick to have a strange obsession with sports. He played everything: football, soccer, basketball, baseball…I think he even gave a hand at tennis, when Adam went through a tennis phase and forced all of his brothers to play doubles with him. Me, on the other hand…okay, I wasn't born into it or anything but seriously, my mom married Watson when I was in second grade. I couldn't help but get a _little _accustomed to the lap of luxury.

"Because I'm tired so fuck off," I said, irritably. Nick held up his hands like a peace offering. He jumped onto the wall next to me and swung his long legs, kicking his heels against the bricks.

"So what's going on with the party?"

"I dunno. It's the day school ends, I think."

"End of term party? It's going to be wild." I shrugged.

"Watson and my mom don't care. Well, Watson will," I said, with a laugh. "But _I _don't give a shit."

"Watson's such a nice guy; I don't know why you still don't like him."

"I never said that," I argued. I felt a little irritated that Nick was kind of taking Watson's side when he hardly knew him. "I just said I don't care about what he thinks."

"It's his house," he pointed out. I was about to snap something back to him when we heard the doors open.

"Oh, hey," Nick said. It was Matt. Nick was pretty good at signing since the two families practically grew up together; Haley, Vanessa, Matt, and Nick were always good friends. Matt waved back, grinning. I, personally, never really knew what to do around Matt. He was deaf, sure, and I don't care and all but I can't exactly _communicate_ with him now, can I? I never knew how to act with him around. I heard he can read lips well so I knew he'd know whatever I was saying and he could even talk a little, but he mainly preferred to sign, in case he said something wrong.

"Is Haley back yet?" Nick asked, with an overly hopeful look. Matt laughed and flipped him off. I grinned too. It was pretty obvious what Matt just said. For the past two years, Nick has been so in love with Haley that it's hilarious. Yeah she's hot, but last time I checked, she was going out with some guy from her college. And she was also incredibly close to Jeff, Dawn's younger brother, who had moved back to Connecticut a couple years ago, although I wasn't sure if that was platonic or romantic. Either way, she was way out of Nick's league but she was good to him. She let him trail her around at parties, made an effort to talk to him before her attention got whisked away by the older crew of Stoneybrookers.

Matt signed something to Nick who translated.

"She's going to come back next Wednesday. Hey! That's in time for your party!" I gave him a doubtful look.

"Yeah right, Nick. Like Haley would come to a high school party now that she's been to college and everything?"

"She might," Nick said, and gave me such a begging look that it was impossible not to say no. It would be like kicking a puppy into a ditch with a lion.

"Okay. Matt?" He had been looking my way so he knew his name had been called. "Do you want to ask Haley if she wants to come to my party next Friday?" He grinned.

"Okay," he said. It's always strange to hear him talk because his voice sounds so hoarse and unused. He signed something really quick to Nick.

"He says he's going to ask her to come!" he crowed, triumphantly. "And says she'll be flattered by the invite!" I laughed again. That was pretty devious of Matt. I caught his eye and he grinned at me.

"You better be there too," I said, suddenly and impulsively. Matt shrugged.

"Of course," he said, in his rough voice. I don't know why but that made me feel pretty good.

* * *

A/N: I'm going to stick the answers to questions and comments here at the end of the chapter so feel free to skip them if they don't concern you.

**Jadedgurl05**: I don't understand your question! Sorry!

**sUmMeRiTh: **for some reason, I always felt like Karen and David would hook up sooner or later; I mean, they're teens and they probably have a ton of privacy, considering they live in that gigantic house together…or maybe I'm just super twisted, haha.

**Sarah**: Yes! It is a reference to the song. I LOVE the song. I've had it on repeat for like the past week…

**Celica06: **Karen "Let's All Come In!" Brewer. Haha. I used to hate Karen too (actually, I still do but I might tweak her personality for this fic) so it's strange to be writing something that centers around her.

**McKay1**: I did read your review right before moving the story! Thanks for both reviews!


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: _Thanks Shannon, for bringing to my attention that Erick and Lindsey are actually not related (they don't even live on the same coast)! Unfortunately, I kind of like the idea of a couple of very preppy siblings. If it doesn't bother anyone immensely on the very big violation of canon, I think I'll keep things the way they are. They won't be very prominent characters anyway. Gosh, Ann M., it's been such a long time since I've read the books and you go and make things more difficult by reusing names! Heh.

**: Tiny Vessels :  
**

**: Chapter Three :  
**

It's Tuesday afternoon, three more days until the school's out, when the phone rings. It rings about seven times before I finally realize that no one else is home to pick it up. I figure Karen must be over at Hannah's but no clue where Emily Michelle is. She's way busier than Karen and me put together with her extracurriculars. I guess Elizabeth and Watson want to make her into their ideal super child. I kind of feel bad for Emily Michelle but she doesn't seem to mind being carted off from soccer to ballet to math club.

I pick up the phone.

"Hey."

"Who's this?"

"Don't be a dick, David, it's me, Nick."

"Oh, hey. What's up?"

"Margo."

"What?"

"You heard me. She's back and she's being a pain in the ass already."

"What do you want _me _to do about it?" I demand. I can almost hear Nick's eyebrow sliding up and silently giving me that look that says, _Are you really that slow?_

"I want you to get off your lazy ass and drive over here and hang out with us."

"Wait, her school's out already?" I ask, trying to buy time.

"Yeah. They get out almost a week before we do, which is unfair as it is. She came home yesterday night and went straight to bed but has been on my case ever since I got up this morning."

"You didn't mention it during lunch today."

"Yeah? Maybe I was trying to forget about it."

"Why didn't she come to school?"

"Sleeping in."

"Oh."

Margo started attending the same boarding school that her older sister Mallory went to since seventh grade. She comes home during the summer and winter and random sporadic breaks during the year but all in all, I hadn't really seen her all that much since she left. I might have gotten like glimpses of her or something when she's out with her family but I don't think I've exchanged two words with her for what seems like an eternity.

"She's been asking about you."

"Me? What about me?"

"Hey, I'm not the one that went out with her," Nick says, sounding irritated.

"Nick…that was in sixth grade."

"Yeah well, she goes to an all girl boarding school. Of course she wants to see the first and last boyfriend she's ever had."

Ah, middle school. The only time you go out with someone for a week and it can be considered a bona fide relationship.

"The school doesn't lock her in during summers!" I blast, vehemently. "She could meet some guys then. And she hasn't bothered me at all since we broke up, a very long four years ago, I might add, I don't get why you suddenly want to match us up _now_."

"I'm not trying to match you guys up so stop pissing your pants, Thomas," Nick says. "I told her you didn't like girls your age anyway."

"Wait, _what_?"

"Yeah. You don't, though. Like every girl you've gone out with since Margo has been older than you. You're like a one man jail bait show."

"That's a lie."

"You fucking went out with _Vanessa_ for crying out loud."

"Oh yeah."

I did. It was kind of a bad move on my part but, personally, Vanessa was a lot cooler than Margo, a lot less superficial, anyway. I also went out with Vanessa freshman year of high school which would make it about a good three years since I "dated" Margo. The thing with Vanessa lasted for about three months and they were good times; she was pretty introspective and kind of challenged me which I enjoyed.

"And you went out with Charlotte Johansson and Becca's older sister, Jessica, albeit for like a month in the summer. Do you really want the whole list?"

Okay, so maybe I do kind of go for older girls. But I've always been told that I'm kind of mature for my age; the majority of the girls my age are pretty damn shallow and superficial; don't shoot me, maybe it just _seems_ that way. All the girls I've gone out with are kind of on the quiet side and really smart, nothing like what I felt populated the girls of my grade.

I hear the front door open and close.

"Hello?" I lean back against the counter and my heart does an involuntary thump. Okay, I lied. Some girls my age are just fine.

"Is anyone home?" Karen appears at the kitchen doorway.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't know you were on the phone. Is Elizabeth and Em home yet?"

I shake my head.

"Hey, is that Karen?" Nick asks. "Tell her to come over too."

"Are you crazy?" I hiss. "They don't get along!"

"Who cares? Maybe I _am _going crazy so put the damn phone down and get over here!"

I hang up on him.

"Um, no, they're not back yet," I say. "Want to go to Nick's?"

Karen shrugs.

"I don't know. I have some homework to do. Any special reason why?"

"Margo's home. She's driving Nick nuts."

"Oh…" Her voice seems to trail off as she contemplates the pros and cons. I silently beg her to come so that I wouldn't be forced to deal with the Pike bickering alone. It is an absolute nightmare to hang out with Nick and Margo at the same time. _Please please please say you'll come; I know you don't get along with Margo and you practically jumped for joy when you found out she was leaving but please say you'll come_, I pray.

Karen sighs.

"Okay, fine, I'll go. But you kind of owe me a lot for this," she says. I can hardly contain my relief.

"Whew, thanks Karen. Whatever you want." I reach over and grab the keys off the counter.

"Let's hurry before their house explodes from their fighting or something."

"Oh joy," Karen mutters, following me out the garage.

* * *

Despite the fact that the majority of people have moved out, the Pike house still feels like there's millions of kids running around it at any given moment. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that each Pike kid seems to be equipped with a booming vocal box, except maybe Vanessa. I'm kind of hoping that I don't run into her at the Pike house but I realize that she's probably not home from college anyway. 

"Finally," Nick says, opening the door and letting us in. "I've been waiting for hours."

"More like fifteen minutes, you whiner," I say. There's only Margo and Claire and Nick home but the house is still loud, and that's saying a lot considering I grew up in Watson's house. The radio and T.V. are simultaneously blaring, Claire is yelling at someone on the phone, and Margo is singing along to some asinine song.

"David and Karen are here!" Nick announces.

Claire looks over and raises an eyebrow and turns around and keeps talking on the phone. She's a freshman this year and is actually pretty cute; a lot better looking than Margo, Mallory, or even Vanessa, if I was going to be honest.

"God Jen, you know that's not what I meant!"

Claire appears to be listening to someone extremely irate on the other end and then slams the phone down onto the receiver with much gusto. I exchange a look with Karen, who looks equally amused.

"Trouble with Jen?" Nick asks.

"A little," Claire says, but doesn't really seem all that bothered by it.

"Wait a minute, Jen? Jennifer Prezzioso?" Margo asks; her voice is amazingly loud and I'm a little more surprised than I expected to be.

It takes me a minute to realize that she's not yelling over the sounds from the T.V. and radio; that's just how loud her voice is. It stays the same, even when Nick reaches over to the remote and turns off the T.V. and Margo turns the radio down.

"Yeah, Jen. So what?"

Claire's voice is challenging and starts to rise. Margo rolls her eyes.

"Yeah so what? She's a total bitch, that's what. You let her walk all over you and then you call me, crying about it? I've told you a million times to just end it with that girl but every time she calls you up with some sob story, you forgive her!"

"Well gee, Margo, if I listened to your advice every time, it kind of looks like I'd have no friends," Claire says, all sarcastic.

I'm already starting to get uncomfortable and Nick notices and intervenes.

"Guys, I brought Karen and David over to hang out. I don't think they want to hear you guys bickering."

"Sorry," Claire says, shortly, and leaves the room, which is too bad because she's actually kind of okay to hang out with, even if she's only a freshman.

"Hey David. Karen," Margo says, giving us a little wave.

It's kind of awkward, to tell the truth, since this is basically the first time Karen and I have seen her since she first started attending that boarding school. I try not to look as though I'm obviously scrutinizing her. Margo is still small and dark like she was in sixth grade but now kohl lines her eyes and makes her look even more fierce than she normally does. She's wearing what I swear is the same thing she wore in sixth grade: shorts and a black tank top. I guess she doesn't change her uniform. I kind of like her look though, more than I wanted to admit, maybe especially because it hasn't changed. She kind of reminds me of the sort of peace of mind I had when we went out (and damn, that makes me sound jaded. I'm really not that kind of person, honest).

"Hi," Karen finally says. "How was school?"

Margo shrugs, making her thick, choppy hair brush her bare shoulders.

"It kind of sucks but it's not too bad."

"Ever think about come back to school here?"

"Probably not. It's even lamer here."

Nick opens his mouth as if to argue but appears to catch himself just in time.

"Who wants something to drink?" he asks.

"Get me a soda, loser," Margo says.

Nick rolls his eyes and when he comes back, he tosses Margo her soda unceremoniously and makes a big deal out of wiping the top of the soda and opening it for Karen before handing it to her with both hands, in an exaggerated manner. Although I know he's doing it as a joke, to get a rise out of Margo, it still kind of bothers me. I shake my head to try and clear my mental thoughts; and here I was, five minutes earlier thinking about the way Margo looked. I blame it all on my hormones. I accept my own soda and drink about half of it in one go.

"What's up with Jenny and Claire?" I ask, for the lack of a better subject.

Nick shrugs.

"Who knows? They're always fighting over one thing or another but they always end up making up. It's probably because of Jamie Newton."

"Wait what?" Karen says, laughing. "Jamie Newton? Really?"

"Yeah. He asked Claire out but I think Jen liked him more."

"Such drama," I say, wryly.

"Hey, we did the same old shit when we were their age," Nick says. "In fact, we still do. Hey, did you know that Jackie asked out Lindsey the other day?"

"He should stop trying to skirt around things, going out with so many people, and ask Myriah to just go out with him. She's been kind of expecting it all year and it hasn't happened yet," Karen says, carefully tracing the top of the soda can with one finger.

"Yeah but Myriah's…_Myriah_," Nick counters. "I think he still thinks he's clumsy and dopey and Myriah is, I dunno, _perfect_." He thinks for a minute. "Well, she is and he is but she still likes him."

"Wait what? Really?"

This is news to me. I was kind of spacing out until just now. When did Nick find this out? He's not a real big gossip.

"Yeah, Karen told me," he says.

"You weren't supposed to tell anyone either," Karen says, exasperated. "But now you've gone and told David _and_ Margo!"

"But David's your _brother_," Nick says. "And Margo isn't even here most of the year. They don't count. I thought David already knew."

I'm kind of annoyed that Karen didn't tell me this but then again, considering how much I vehemently deny wanting to talk about other people, I guess she might have avoided the subject with me. I'm still surprised at how good of friends Karen and Myriah is, since they were both raised as being in the center of attention. Now it kind of seems like they're both trying to stay as close to the sidelines as possible. They've both been keeping things low-key for the most of the year but that doesn't stop people from gossiping. Hey, I said I didn't _like_ gossip; that doesn't mean I don't hear it, right? I can only imagine the amount of shit people talk about _me_. Nancy, Karen's elementary school friend, once heard me complaining about it and told me that I should take it all in stride; after all, being talked about means people care about you and what you do. Something like that. It doesn't stop me from being pissed off when people talk shit about me but I always remember it when I do get annoyed.

"Who the hell cares about this shit anyway?" Margo suddenly says and starts laughing really loudly.

Her laugh is pretty damn grating and I don't even know what she's laughing about, but I suspect it has something to do with the triviality of what we're talking about. I'm the only one in the room who cracks a smile; for some reason, I'm more amused than annoyed. Soon, I start laughing. Margo sees that and smiles at me, a big glowing beam of a smile shooting my way, but I look the other way see Karen's annoyed expression. Her mouth is kind of set in a hard line and she's staring at the ground, still tracing the round rim of the soda with her finger. Her cheeks are flushed with anger and despite the fact that she's pissed as hell, she looks pretty. She looks up at me and I stop laughing immediately.

* * *

_A/N_: A note on everyone's ages: Haley is Vanessa's age. They were both nine when Jeff, the triplets, etc. were ten, David Michael and Margo were eight, Karen and Nicky were seven, and Jessi was eleven. However, I took the liberty of bumping Haley and Vanessa up to the triplet's grade and making David, Margo, and Nick all in the same grade (Karen would be in the same grade anyway since she skipped first grade). Yes, this means that David would have gone out with Vanessa when she was a junior and he was a freshman. The grade/age difference would be the same for whenever he and Charlotte went out and two years more when he and Jessi went out. Basically, he and Jessi would have been three years apart but four grades apart. This might seem farfetched but outside of a school setting, when a girl is like nineteen and a guy is almost seventeen, it's not so insane. Whew, was that confusing? Sorry; I just had to bump people up and down in grades and stuff to make things work. 

Thanks everyone for reviewing, I'm really glad you guys are enjoying this!


	4. Chapter Four

**: Tiny Vessels :  
**

**: Chapter Four :  
**

I'm sitting on the porch swing at the Pike's house. Don't ask me how I got stuck here with Miss Margo, seventeen year old on a power trip, while Nick was driving Karen home. I hear the front door open and the screen door slam against the wooden one. Margo sits down next to me, a thin blanket around her. She gamely offers some and I pull the blanket over my knees. The sky is darkening and it's starting to become a surprisingly cool night, considering it's mid-June. Margo has her knees pulled up to her chest and I can tell that her big eyes are on me.

"I'm sorry I pissed Karen off again," she finally says. I look over at her.

"Don't worry about it," I say. "You guys always fight anyway."

"Used to," Margo corrects me. "I really shouldn't have said you guys are shallow but I knew that would piss Karen off."

"Well, we kind of are," I point out. Hey, come on, I admit it; my group of friends are shallow. I mean, how profound can you be going to be a tiny Connecticut high school where social hierarchy is alive and kicking?

"I think there's something wrong with me, David," Margo says. "I knew it was going to piss her off but I couldn't help saying it. In fact, it just made me want to say it more."

I am kind of mad at Margo, since her unending diatribe against us caused to Karen get up, lips pressed tightly against each other, and walk quickly for the front door without saying anything. Nick had stopped her and asked her if she needed a ride. I protested, saying that was dumb since I should be getting home too anyway. But Margo slipped her small hand around the crook of my elbow and agreed that I would be fine back here with her. Karen had bit her lip and I could tell she was pissed beyond reason. I wonder if she ordered me to take her home, I would have gone. But she didn't and she just left, silently, through the doors, Nick following.

"Maybe you just like to push people's limits," I say, shrugging. I am distinctly aware of how close Margo is sitting; I can feel the warmth from her bare arm on my own arm. But she seems to be making an effort to not make any sort of physical contact and I'm kind of enjoying that. Most girls, in this situation, would have already snuggled up and put their heads on my shoulder or something but Margo is keeping entirely to herself. I don't even know why that matters so much.

"I shouldn't, though. There's nothing in getting people mad for no reason." We're lapse into silence and watch the sun sink below the tops of the houses. The sky is fantastic and red.

"Did you know that this is the first time I've been back for the summer since eighth grade?" I didn't know but I didn't say anything. She studies my face.

"Yeah. I've only come back for Christmas because the break is only a week long."

"That's why I never really saw you around?" I ask.

"Basically."

"And your parents let you?"

"As if they give a damn. They have eight kids, David. I bet they were secretly begging me to stay at school. So I'd come back for Christmas, remain a hermit for a week, and go back."

"But I thought for sure I saw you around more than that," I argue. Margo shrugs.

"Maybe you saw one of my sisters. There's so many of us Pikes that when we're in a group, it doesn't matter who's there and who's not, it still looks like we're all there."

"Why didn't you come back? No one's heard from you since you left back in seventh grade." Margo shrugs again and her bare shoulder brushes against my arm. She pulls her arm away and angles herself so that the offending limb is further from me but she is facing me more.

"Honestly? Same reason I left Stoneybrook. This town is so fucking suffocating. Everyone knows everyone's business; there's no such thing as culture in this tiny place. I really wanted out and the only place I could go was boarding school. I know boarding school is a small, isolated community too but believe it or not, people seem to mind their own shit a lot more there than you'd expect." I sit back, processing all of this.

"But if I was going to be honest, I've missed you," she says. I glance over at her really quickly but she's looking at me with this almost glare, kind of taking away some of the emotions from what she said. But looking more carefully, I see how vulnerable she actually is; her shoulders hunched very slightly and her chin tucked in close to her collarbone somehow strike me as a giveaway.

"I know, I know, it's stupid, really fucking stupid, since we don't even really know each other, if you think about it," Margo says.

"It's not stupid," I counter, automatically. It's like a robotic response, not a real one, and immediately, Karen's face flashes in my mind's eye. Margo raises an eyebrow at me, and suddenly, her shoulders are straightened and her eyes are squarely on mine.

"Yeah it is," she says, a hint of that deep, belly laugh rumbling in her voice. "But it's okay. We can be stupid sometimes. We're only seventeen." I'm surprised when she reaches over and brushes her fingers so lightly that I can barely feel it on my arm. It tickles my skin and I can feel the small, fine hairs stand up on their ends as my skin becomes gooseflesh. It's hard to read Margo, if I'm going to be honest. If she is any other girl, from the way she is acting, I would expect that she wants me to slip an arm around her waist, pull her closer, fool around for a little bit maybe. But it's a little different with Margo; maybe it's because she's practically still glaring at me, looking at me with the same fierce, intense look.

A part of me wants to stay, it really does. I want to stay and find out what makes Margo click; she's a complete stranger, which is a total novelty when you're living in Stoneybrook. She's not who she was when she left and there's suddenly so much to discover about her, physically and mentally. I'm tempted to stay but I find myself standing up, gathering my half of the blanket and giving it back to her.

"Look, I'm having a party at my house the on Friday. You should come; I mean, if Nick hasn't already told you about it," I say, although Margo has already expressed her disdain of Stoneybrookers several times today. Margo snorts.

"Nick? Tell me? Yeah right; if he had it his way, I wouldn't be here right now."

"So yeah, if you get bored being antisocial, maybe you should check it out," I say. I don't know what's to be read in her eyes: disappointment? Relief? Absolutely nothing at all?

As I pull out of the Pike's driveway and leave, I check the rearview mirror where Margo is still sitting there on the porch swing, watching me as though she can see me looking at her. I press down on the accelerator.

* * *

"We've already had dinner but there are some leftovers in the fridge if you want to heat them up." That's Mom's greeting to me as I walk in through the garage door.

"Thanks," I say, but she's already busy, walking out of the room. Mom and Watson seem to be busier and busier these days. I guess it's great because it ensures a lot of privacy, exactly the type that I guess people my age need. But sometimes I think that it would be nice to see the people that have put this roof over my head more often.

I look in the fridge and find something that mildly resembles pasta and pull it out. I wonder if you're supposed to reheat pasta in the microwave. Wouldn't it be better if you reheat it on a stove?

I have a hunk of ravioli in some sort of cream sauce bubbling in a pan when Karen enters the kitchen. She looks freshly showered and the bottoms of her hair are little, yellow points that drip water. She sits down at the table, watching my successful attempt at cooking (well okay, reheating).

"What are you making?" she asks.

"Reheating the pasta."

"Aren't you supposed to use the microwave?" I gesture towards the pasta.

"Can you really argue that when this smells this great?" I turn off the stove and look for a plate.

"You stayed at Nick's for awhile," she says, conversationally.

"Not really." My eyes stray towards the clock. Okay, I stayed for almost two more hours.

"I was waiting for you to come home but I got sick of that and took a shower instead," Karen says, looking at me with a strange expression.

"Oh," is the only thing I can come up with. I can feel my heart starting to quicken. I take my plate of pasta over to the table and sit down next to Karen.

"Want some?" I offer. She shakes her head.

"What about Nick?" I ask, suddenly remembering that he never came back after supposedly dropping Karen off.

"He dropped me off and went to hang out with Erick. He doesn't like being in the same house with Margo for too long," Karen says.

"Neither do you," I point out.

"What?" Karen's eyes have turned suddenly hard and I keep reminding myself to stop looking at them. They're surprisingly dark, not quite the bright blue they used to be. They're huge and dark, only really turning blue when they're in the light. I try to shut out all of these observations about my stepsister's eyes.

"Nothing, it's nothing."

"Have you guys been keeping in touch?" she asks, suddenly.

"What?"

"You guys used to go out," she said. "Did you guys keep in touch? I know I didn't and I was kind of supposed to be her friend. It makes me feel like I've been a shitty one."

"You guys weren't that close," I say. "Don't feel bad. Besides, Vanessa says that the only person that Margo ever wrote to was Claire." Karen is still looking at me in this almost expectant look.

"We didn't really go out," I find myself saying. "It was for basically one week."

"Seth sent Andrew a letter today," she says, changing the topic completely. I suddenly realize that maybe this whole time she didn't want to talk about Margo or Nick or anything like that. I stay quiet, though, as I always do whenever Karen talks about her other family. I've learned that there's not much I can say to comfort her and I have a feeling she tells me for the sake of telling, not for hearing any advice.

"It's nice of him to, I guess, Seth, I mean, but it always leaves Andrew in such a bad mood afterwards. Not like cranky but just depressed. I mean, I guess it would be depressing since Andrew hasn't seen Seth since…well, since the divorce, basically."

"I'm trying really hard," she continues, looking, sadly, down at her hands, that are twisting around the soft material of her t-shirt. "But sometimes I wish I didn't have to. I wish someone else would just do it for me." Water drips from her hair, beading down her arms. Without thinking, I reach out a hand and run it down her arm, carefully and softly. Her arm is soft and warm, and the drops of water melt under my palm. I don't even have to talk and it seems as though Karen understand what I'm saying to her.

"I know," she says, softly. "I know you'll help me." As my hand passes hers, she grips it suddenly, surprising me, and her fingers are surprisingly cold in comparison to her arm. I try to warm them, with nothing but five fingers of my own and a cupped palm.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading!

**Katie**- ah, nice to know my huge paragraph of ages helped!

**Asia- **Thanks for pointing that out! Basically, I littered my writing with more than enough of those because David's supposed to be kind of pretentious and mature for his age but it's completely possible that I've been using them too often! I'll definitely watch myself in the future, even within David's voice.

**Shannon-** thank you so much for your review! It brought to my attention a lot of things I hadn't considered/realized.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed!


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's Note_: I'm trying hard not to mess with people's ages and grades too much but Andrew is four or five in the books and Karen is seven but one grade ahead what she is supposed to be. Still, I took the liberty of making them only two years apart so that when Karen is, say, in eighth grade, Andrew would be in sixth grade. I'll try to stop doing this…And unfortunately I couldn't remember the names of any bullies in the BSC books (although I know there were some!) and so I had to make up a minor character.

**: Tiny Vessels :**

**: Chapter Five :  
**

_Things change as you get older. I mean, it's a total given fact of life, something you just can't change. There are two types of change. Sometimes things change so fast and so obviously that you actually think to yourself, 'everything's going to be different now.' It was like that with the whole shitty debacle with Seth and Mom. I knew; I could pinpoint the very moment where I consciously said to myself that my life was ever going to be the same again. This kind of change can be exciting but usually, they're completely torturous. They're events of your life that you would put down in an autobiography; the kinds of times in your life when you feel like you need big fanfare and confetti and attention brought to this single moment in your life when everything changes. _

_But usually, it's not like that. Usually, things change so slowly that you don't even notice it; you realize that you lose touch with a friend here and there, that math is becoming more and more difficult, but everything happens slowly, one step at a time, that you don't even realize that all of a sudden, you notice it. You realize that you can't go home because it's not the same place it's been anymore. _

_It's in that sort of slow way that I stopped being friends with Nancy even though I stayed close as ever with Hannah. Even when we had classes together, I found myself sitting in a seat that was on the other side of the room as her without even noticing or caring. When we have to work on class projects together, it's a little awkward, a little bitter, but on the whole, it's like we were never friends in the first place. We smile, make small talk, and go on with our lives. _

_It was in that same slow way that Rick and I also grew apart from each other. We broke up without a fight; things just fizzled out. We both walked away with major limbs intact. That part wasn't worrying. I didn't care that we couldn't carry on a conversation together for longer than five minutes. I couldn't care less that Rick made out with other girls in the middle of the hallway. What worried me was that I noticed that I had grown out of liking anybody; I didn't feel the need to flirt with guys like Hannah and Myriah did. I hadn't even noticed that I had turned this way, it had happened to silently. _

_So I worried. I worried that maybe there was something wrong with my hormones. I could remember the summer of sixth grade when I had ice cubes dropped down my shirt and chasing after boys, playfully. I used to giggle, flip my hair, smile that smile that Hannah and I practiced together, feeling dumb for doing it but still doing it anyway. So if I used to be some sort of ultra-girly machine before, why wasn't I like that anymore? _

_A part of me was relieved. I did not, in any way, respect those types of girls anyway. I marked it as a show of immaturity and stupidity; I mean, these girls might as well throw themselves at guys' feet and just proclaim their inferiority. Then again, I kind of knew, even then, that there was a reason why that part of me shut down, why I didn't feel any urge to garner attention from the opposite gender._

_It was weird, that I didn't like anyone after Rick; and I went out with him back in second grade when most boys, _especially _my step-brother, were pests with cooties. I tried liking other guys, I really did. I went out with Bobby for awhile after Rick and I broke up officially; he confessed he had wanted to ask me out for a long time but because of Rick he couldn't. That didn't last for very long. I went out with Linny for an even briefer period of time. I tried liking all the guys Hannah tried to put me with; I tried._

_I tried really hard to like all these different guys, almost as hard as I tried not_ _to like one guy in particular. Because it's wrong. Because it's taboo. Because it's just not done. Because you don't want people to be grossed out by it. Because you don't want people to be grossed out by you. Because you don't want people to look at you and whisper about you and make rumors about you. Because you don't want to disappoint everyone. Because you don't want to cause any trouble. Because you don't want to cause him any trouble. Because you don't want him to know how you really feel. Because you're almost afraid to find out that he feels the same way._

_Because he's supposed to be your brother. _

_He's my brother._

* * *

I'm on my way to the cafeteria and I'm actually in a strangely good mood for no reason. School was so dangerously close to being over, the weather was amazing, and I was able to breeze through school so far with no mishaps of petty teen drama. As my mind flickered across that thought, though, I couldn't help thinking back to Karen and then Margo and then back to Karen again, for different reasons. I wonder if Margo is at school today and if she is, whether she is driving Nick absolutely insane or not. I actually chuckle out loud at the thought of Margo and her loud voice and Nick, forced to stay with her all day; that's how good of a mood I'm in. 

Then I sober, thinking about Karen. I berate myself. I'm so wrapped up trying to analyze everything about her that I actually miss the big stuff, when she's feeling like absolute dog shit, like yesterday. Thinking of Karen led me to thinking of Andrew, who I hadn't seen for the past couple of days. Just like that, he seemingly appears out of nowhere. Well, okay, no, I said that so it would have a more dramatic effect. Actually, I had just turned the corner and I found Andrew there, apparently getting his ass kicked by some big, overweight kid, whose face is red with the exertion.

"What the fuck is going on here," I demand, and grab the front of the kid's shirt. He gasps and glares at me with his beady eyes.

"I asked you a question," I say, slowly so that he can't miss my words.

"Fuck off," he says. It's amazing, that in a school as small as SHS, I actually don't know who this kid is.

"No, if you fuck with my brother, you're going to have a good reason," I say.

"It's none of your business," he says, spraying me with spit. I push him so that he hits the lockers. I grab him again. Andrew scrambles a little ways away; a bruise is forming around his eye.

"That's not good enough," I say. I can feel a snarl forming on my lips. "Until you give me a good reason, you can say 'fuck off' to me all you want; I'm not letting you get to your lunch. Speaking of which, it looks like you can stand to skip a lunch or two." He struggles under my hold but I'm older and he doesn't slip away.

"Fuck you." I start to laugh at his comeback but he cuts me off. "Or, actually, why don't you go fuck your sister? Everybody knows you already are." It's a surprisingly witty comment, coming from him, if you think about it. And it fuels me and I punch him in his soft, fleshy stomach, and push him to the ground.

"Take it back right now," I say. He doesn't answer and I punch him again.

"Take it back." Andrew's weak voice floats over.

"Take it back _now_," he says, with more strength. We're all staring at each other and I feel like in one minute, one of us is going to snap and things would go straight to a bloody, bitter hell from there.

"What is going on here?" It's the stereotypical shocked, stern voice of a teacher who has walked in on fight. Thankfully, I wasn't holding on to kid's shirt or punching him or anything. Instead, I turn around with my hands up. I want to tell the teacher that this kid was beating up Andrew but I won't, not unless Andrew says it first. Sometimes, telling too much can mean an even bigger beat up after school, with a few more buddies.

"Nothing," Andrew says, first.

"Yeah," the kid chimes in, a little too eagerly. The teacher, who I recognize as a senior biology teacher, looks at me since I'm the oldest.

"Just a little argument, that's all. We'll go to the cafeteria," I said. She gives us a look that screams, _I just can't deal with you kids right now_ and leaves. The kid gets up and leaves when he sees his chance and I offer my hand to Andrew who takes it and gets up.

"Thanks, for not telling," he says.

"What? And get my ass in detention too?" I say, and he laughs.

"What did that kid have against you anyway?" I ask. Andrew shrugs.

"Most of the time, Brady picks on kids for no reason, but I messed up his science project earlier this week."

"What?"

"Yeah. Big project. He built a bridge out of like toothpicks or something, I don't know, and I accidentally broke it."

"Can't he just tell the teacher and get an extension?" Andrew shrugs.

"He probably can't bribe the person who made it for him twice."

"Oh." We start slowly walking to the cafeteria. Right before we enter, I can't stop myself from asking.

"Hey Andrew, do people really think that about me and Karen?" I ask. Andrew looks at me strangely.

"Nah," he says. "Brady says sick stuff all the time. Everyone knows he's full of lies. It's not like you and Karen are anything more than brother and sister anyway, and that's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Okay," I say, and hold the door open for Andrew, who walks through and looks for his friends. I let the door swing shut behind me and look for where everyone's sitting. I see Nick waving me over and Karen next to him, who's also, in her own way, waving me over. I sigh, inwardly, and think over what Andrew said. There's nothing to be worried over, nothing to be ashamed about. But I can't help thinking I have to pay better attention to where my eyes wander when I'm not thinking.

* * *

_A/N :_

**Psychoticbarbie**- thanks for giving my story a chance!

**Virtual Unicorn**- Oh, I'm pretty sure things aren't going to be so happy at the end, heh.

**Rainbowishprincess**- are you the same rainbowish princess on just not logged in? If so, I love your fics!

Thank you everyone for reviewing! Please review on your way out, I love getting the feedback!


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's note_: I'm sorry for the confusion of the changing point of views. Italicized paragraphs will always be Karen's musings while standard will be David's narrative. Hope that helps clear up any future confusion. 

**: Chapter Six :**

I knew something about Friday was going to be off. And by off, I mean…just…not normal. I had mismatched socks on my feet. I spilled my milk this morning. And I was a full twenty minutes late for school and I didn't even realize it until I walked into the hallways and found them completely empty.

I figure it would go away when I actually got some human interaction (the house seemed weirdly empty this morning) but everyone seemed to be on some sort of wild goose hunt for each other. I'd see one person, who would then disappear and another would turn the corner and ask me where they went.

It started as soon as I got out of first period.

"Hey David!"

I turn to see Nick running to catch up with me. Or so I initially think. He doesn't seem intent on slowing down to match my walk, even after he's level with me.

"Yeah?"

"Seen Myriah?"

"Oh, no, not today," I say, and Nick breezes by me, but before he disappears, he yells, "I'll see you at lunch then!"

Right after that, as I climbed a flight of stairs to head to chemistry, I ran smack into Lindsey who was looking for Hannah. Then there was Erick who was looking for Lindsey. The whole process seemed to repeat and twist within themselves, like we were playing some demented version of tag. I lost track of who was looking for whom and who I had seen.

I figure this would all blow over by lunch and I could sit down at my usual table with everyone else and ask them what was going on and why everyone was so frazzled seeming. But that wasn't exactly the case. Karen and Hannah were missing, I noticed first, Erick was sitting with some of his friends from the basketball team, and everyone else seemed to have mysteriously disappeared.

Well, there was Jackie, who was sitting at our usual table. He seemed completely at ease like he didn't care at all that he was sitting alone in the middle of a busy cafeteria. Between the two of us, I'm obviously the more vocal of expressing my disdain on high school hierarchy, but when it really boils down to it, I think Jackie is really the only person in the whole school, maybe the whole world, that doesn't care about it or even really think about it.

Jackie's just Jackie and I can't say I don't envy him at least a little for it.

I set my brown bag down across from him and sit down.

"Hey, where is everyone?"

Jackie shrugs, and closes the magazine that he's reading and sticks it in his backpack. That's weird occurrence number fifty-two for the day: since when did Jackie read magazines? Or, since when did Jackie read at all, for that matter? The only thing I've ever seen him actually read was _Leaves of Grass_, which is so random that it somehow makes sense.

To be honest, it's kind of awkward. I've never really been all that close to Jackie and I don't think we've ever been completely alone together like this before. I busy myself with opening my yogurt and peeling the plastic cover from it slowly and deliberately. Jackie doesn't peg me as the silent type, though, so I'm expecting him to make conversation. It's weirding me out that he isn't.

I drop a handful of raisins into my yogurt and stir it in. Karen likes this whole plain yogurt and raisin combination. She makes it nearly every night as a snack and most times and it grew on me pretty fast.

When I look up, I realize that Jackie looks kind of…well, not like Jackie. When someone says "Jackie" you think of a fiery redhead with a huge, closed-mouth beaming smile. But the guy sitting across from me looks really tired and almost haggard. There are purple bags under his eyes that look like bruises and the only thing he's touching in his lunch is his small bottle of Odwalla orange juice.

I don't even know what to say. I mean, it's so _obvious_ that there's something wrong, that something's bothering Jackie, but I don't have any words at all to offer. Sure I'm also really curious but I don't exactly know how to put my questions in a tactful manner.

I eat my yogurt slowly, wondering why today is so damn weird and why I'm sitting in the cafeteria, alone with Jackie, wondering how best to ask Jackie why he's looking like shit today.

_"Hey Jackie. I know we actually never really talk to each other but you know, after I got over stirring my raisins and stuff, I realized you're kind of looking down, what's up?"_

_"Jackie, buddy, why do you look like someone ran over your dog? Oh god, did someone run over your dog?"_

Uh, no thank you, I'll pass. _Did_ someone run over Jackie's dog?

I vow to keep silent during lunch, despite my growing curiosity, and just ask Karen later, who'll probably get Myriah to talk to Jackie or something.

Myriah and Jackie is a funny story. They have this weird unspoken thing about each other that's never really moved into anything else. They both date other people but those relationships never last more than three months. It's like they're constantly waiting for the other to make the first move, and then vehemently deny that they like each other.

Or they used to. But now, apparently, Myriah told Karen who told Nick…but not me. My thinking hits an unpleasant snag. When did Karen and Nick have a chance to talk when I wasn't there? They aren't exactly the best of friends. I mean, they're more than acquaintances but they're not really all that close. Well, out of all of the guys in our group, Karen's probably the closest to me, or so I always thought. Then again, she also gets along strangely well with Bobby, her ex-boyfriend's friend, but that's just flat out weird. So maybe she isn't. Closest to me, that is. Maybe she's actually really good friends with Nick and they gossip on the phone every night. But I'd know about that, right?

I start to realize how little I really know about Karen and her life. Whenever we're together, it's like the outside world shuts down and nothing matters except whatever's happening in our own private little sphere.

I also start to realize how all of my thought processes seem to go back to Karen. I really need to work on this growing problem.

* * *

"Did you see Myriah?"

"She looked fine."

"But did you see _Jackie_?"

"Oh god, he looked like shit. I had to eat lunch in the library because of him."

"Jackie looks the way Myriah should on the outside."

I can hear Karen and Nick talking as I turn the corner. I see them on the other side of the hallway. The final bell rung five minutes ago and I was expecting to see Karen standing by her locker, back against the metal door, but not Nick. He was standing next to her, his hand resting on the lockers next to Karen's head and they looked too close, like weirdly close, considering the hallway wasn't crowded or anything.

They were speaking in soft voices though I could catch a strain of their conversation. So _that's_ why Nick wasn't at lunch? Because of _Jackie_? Was something going on? Why were Nick and Karen keeping things from me?

I regret ever opening my big mouth and claiming I hate gossip because now my curiosity is piqued and I hate this feeling of being left out.

Sometimes I just prefer to be alone, yeah, but at the same time, I hate being left out when it's not my decision. I think it probably has something to do with the fact that Kristy, Sam, and Charlie were always really close and I was the really young tag-a-long that they would have to look after.

I still get a little jealous when they all come home from the holidays and they sit in the kitchen until three in the morning, drinking beer and talking. I wish I was part of that crowd but until I was about twelve, they would always send me to bed around eleven and I stopped begging to stay up after that. I have my pride, you know.

So something in me is kind of sparked when I see Nick and Karen talking with those weird, serious expressions on their faces.

"Hey guys," I say, approaching them.

Is it just me or did their heads just snap up really quickly? They both look at me in surprise.

"Oh, hey David," Nick says, and Karen gives this half-hearted wave. Am I being paranoid or do they look guilty? Guilty of what?

"Where were you guys at lunch today?' I ask.

Karen shrugs. "I had to work on a chem project with Hannah. It's worth thirty percent of our grade."

"I…had to study. I was at the library," Nick says, and I can feel my eyebrow sliding up in disbelief. This boy really could not lie.

"Are you guys…" The confrontation that's bubbling and threatening to spill over my lips gets sucked back in. What could I really say? I couldn't exactly demand for them to reveal what they were talking about without looking freakishly jealous and weird, right?

"Are we what?" Nick asks, with a look of growing confusion on his face. "You feeling okay? You look a little weird."

"No, I'm fine," I say. I wave my hand, as though that'll clear away the confusing thoughts. "It's just been a weird day. Are you guys….going home now?"

Nick makes a face.

"Hey, do you think your parents would mind if I came over for a little bit?" Nick asks.

"Are you still being bothered by Margo?" I ask.

"Is it so wrong to not want to go home when Margo the high queen is bitching every two seconds?"

"But wouldn't she get mad if you didn't come home?" Karen asks.

Nick scowls and he looks like he's eight again. "She doesn't own me. Look, I brought my car today and everything so you guys don't even have to give me a ride back to my house."

I shrug. "Yeah, whatever, it's fine with me." I look over at Karen, who's still looking at Nick.

"I'll ride with you," she says. "You know, the French notes I said I needed to copy from you?"

I suddenly wish I hadn't made such a fuss about taking German and just had taken French instead like everyone else.

"You can just copy them when Nick comes over," I start to say, but Karen and Nick are giving each other pointed looks.

"Fine," I say. "I'll meet you guys back at the house."

I know I sound pissed off but I can't help it. And Nick and Karen are too busy talking in those low voices again that they don't even seem to notice.

* * *

I run into Lindsey on my way to the car.

"Hey David," she says. Her arms are full of supplies and I offer to carry them. She hands over the bin of paint and erasers and we start walking slowly to the supply closet, which is where she's headed.

"Why's the school making you do manual labor?" I ask.

She wrinkles her nose lightly and tightens her blonde, highlighted ponytail.

"I got in trouble. They're doing this new thing, you know. Instead of sitting in detention and goofing off, they make you do like chores or something. I think they fired the janitors or something."

"What'd you do?"

"They caught me cheating on a test," she says.

"Restocking the supply closet seems pretty minor for cheating on a test."

"Well, it was a practice test," she argues. I feel the crate slipping in my fingers and I hoist it up a little; it's getting kind of heavy and it's obscuring my view so I have to turn a little sideways to see where I'm going.

"What class was this in?"

"English lit, with Mr. Mulberry."

Oh, that answers things a lot. Mr. Mulberry is the twenty-five year old teacher that has the annoying tendency to think that he's a student and not a teacher. He does the whole "I'm hip and cool, just like you guys" routine and is kind of an asshole but gets away with it because he's an easy grader. No wonder Lindsey got off easy. A lot of the girls seem to think he's good looking too, but he looks like your average guy. Maybe the fact that he's twenty-five has something to do with it.

If age plays that big of a role, I better be beating off girls with a stick when I'm twenty five.

"Here, you can just set it down here," Lindsey says, opening up the door to the supply closet. I try not to drop the box but it lands on the floor with a loud "thud!" I try to discretely rub my arms.

Then I notice that the supply closet isn't empty. Mr. Mulberry is standing over by the notebook paper, pulling out an unopened packet.

"Oh, hey David!" he says, with this big, cheesy grin. I'm not even in his class.

"Hi Mr. Mulberry."

"You guys can call me Jim, you know."

Somehow, the name "Jim" brings to mind an assistant softball coach who's balding and passive aggressive. I don't even know what it is about this guy that I don't like but I just don't.

I say _whatever_ in my mind and get ready to make my exit.

"Did you make David do all the work, Lindsey?" Mr. Mulberry, on excuse me, _Jim_, asks.

"I wasn't about to turn down his offer!" comes Lindsey's lilting, flirty voice.

"I'll see you guys later," I say, and turn to make my escape, barely holding in my shudder.

I can't even begin to see what Lindsey sees in Mr. Mulberry to want to even talk that way to him. Girls are so strange.

* * *

I'm backtracking from my car, looking for my keys that I must have dropped somewhere between my last class and headed towards my car. I'm getting frustrated and worried when I remember my detour to the supply closet.

I don't see Nick's car in the parking lot which means he and Karen must have already taken off. I wonder if they're wondering where I am, but considering the lack of calls to my cell phone, they must not really care that much.

My internal process of thought sounds bitter even to me.

Oh well. I hope Karen has the home key with her, or else she and Nick will be stranded outside until I get home. Which might be at least another hour if I don't find my keys and am forced to walk home. Well, they have Nick's car so they won't be cold. The weather's getting nicer each day, too, so there's not much of a worry of being stranded in the rain.

I try not to think of various things kids our age do in cars.

I'm taking the same route to the supply closet as I had before with Lindsey, keeping my eyes trained to the ground. I find nothing. I'm at the supply closet, the door slightly ajar. The light was left on. I guess Lindsey wasn't done, or maybe she just forgot to turn it off. Maybe if she comes back, I can ask her if she has my keys.

I push the door open to check and see if my keys are in there. I pop in my head and freeze.

Okay, so it's one thing listening to Lindsey flirt with Mr. Mulberry, not unlike what a lot of the girls do. It's normal. Girls get crushes on their teachers all the time.

It's not normal for the teacher to reciprocate.

Which is exactly what Mr. Mulberry is doing.

He and Lindsey are…making out? It's kind of hard to tell in the dim light of the supply closet but whatever it is, it isn't kosher. Supplies are strewn on the floor and they're making weird noises and suddenly I'm sick to my stomach.

And I spot my keys on the floor.

A million thoughts fly through my mind. Do I risk grabbing the keys and running away? They seem pretty occupied, would they notice if I just reached a little bit? Should I just wait and come back in _another_ hour and see if they're done and grab my keys then? Should I call Lindsey and give her and Mr. Mulberry time to look innocent before I walk in, as though I had just stopped by?

I realize they're both pretty stupid. The supply closet is on school grounds and anyone can easily walk in on them. If they're caught, Mr. Mulberry is toast.

I finally opt for waiting it out.

I walk back to my locker and lean against it, rubbing the back of my hand to my eyes. What the hell was that? And what was I going to do with that knowledge? I wish that I had worn my jeans. These khaki shorts with the loose pockets have a really bad tendency of spilling loose change and keys.

And if I don't get over what I just saw, loose change and keys might not be all that I'm spilling in the near future.


	7. Chapter 7

**: Chapter Seven :**

I'm was at least a good forty-five minutes later than I had anticipated getting home, after being distracted by…well, by Lindsey and her apparent fling with a teacher. I had sat in my car for at least fifteen minutes replaying what I had just saw, in shock. Finally, I had turned the key in the ignition and started on home. Only half-way there, I remembered the whole weird situation with Karen and Nick.

They couldn't possibly like each other, right? I mean, Nick's not really Karen's type or anything. He plays sports, eats like a caveman, and occasionally strings together some coherent sentences. Okay, okay, fine. I'm being kind of biased and he's not so bad. But honestly, would Karen be interested in a guy that has a C average, right?

When I pulled into the driveway, I saw Nick and Karen sitting on the front porch, so close together that their knees were almost touching. I approached them slowly, not really sure if I should be intruding. But I needed to get through the front door to get inside, didn't I?

"Hey guys," I said. They both looked up startled, like little animals caught in the headlights.

"What's up?" Nick said. Lindsey and Mr. Mulberry flashed through my mind.

"Nothing," I said. What I saw was weighing heavily on my chest but I just swallowed it. "Nothing. What were you guys talking about? It looks kind of serious."

Karen and Nick exchanged a glance.

"Well," Nick said, hesitantly. "Nah, it's nothing, you shouldn't worry about it. I don't think it's really you're thing."

I knew that they wanted me to leave it at that. I knew they didn't want me to know but I was sick of being kept in the dark. I wanted to be in on whatever they were always whispering about.

"No, try me, I want to know," I said, as earnestly as possible. Karen raised her eyebrow, skeptical, as usual.

"Look, it's just stuff with Myriah and Jackie, alright? It's not really any of your business," she said.

"Hey," I said, trying to sound diplomatic. "Look, they're my friends too. I saw Jackie today at the cafeteria and he didn't look so good. I just want to know what's going on."

There were more of those annoying glances. Finally, Nick exhaled.

"Alright," he said. "But I'm serious when I say don't tell anyone this." I nodded; I was getting a little excited, like a kid getting something that's usually forbidden, like candy at night or something.

"Look, Myriah's lapsed back into…you know…" Nick's voice trailed off. He just opened his eyes and kind of gave me a meaningful glance.

"She's not eating," Karen said, cutting in, getting impatient. "She's not eating and it's getting to Jackie too."

Nick sighed and rubbed his temples.

"Jackie's just about to give up," he said. "He said he didn't want to deal with Myriah and her problems anymore." I leaned back, a little stunned. This was the first I had heard about Myriah's apparent eating disorder. Yeah, she was a little on the thin side, but so were a lot of girls at school. And I was also surprised at Jackie's apparent heartlessness.

"Wait, so Jackie's just going to give up on Myriah? Not bother helping her anymore?" I asked.

"Look, David, he has a lot on his mind right now," Nick said. "I don't think he needs another set of problems to take on anyway."

"But he likes Myriah," I argued. "Or at least, he should care about her if he does."

Karen looked at me sharply.

"Who said he didn't?" she snapped. "Look, we're all tired of Myriah's problems, okay? It shouldn't be Jackie's responsibility to sit with her at every meal and make sure she eats and keeps it down."

I was stunned by their coldness.

"Am I hearing you guys right? Does Myriah know that you guys talk about her like this behind her back? 'We're tired of Myriah's problems?' Look, I don't want to be rude but you guys sound like a couple of heartless assholes."

Nick stood up and faced me. We were practically the same height but I realized that Nick was now a little taller. I think he realized at that moment too, and took a step forward.

"You don't know, David," he said. "You have no idea what Myriah's problems did to all of us last year."

Last year? The only thing I remember from last year was dating Charlotte Johansson and…oh. I must have missed out on a lot going on with the group during that relationship.

"Look, I'm sorry," I said, hands held up. "I just didn't…I just…all I'm saying is that…if Jackie really likes Myriah, he should stay with her when she needs him."

At this, Nick made an incredibly loud, frustrated sound. He clenched his hands into fists and shut his eyes tight.

"This is why we didn't want to tell you, David," Nick said. "Because you never know the whole story and you pull this weird, self-righteous bullshit."

"Then _tell me_!" I blasted. "Stop telling me I don't know the whole story and just tell me!"

"You don't know how far Myriah pulled Jackie down!" he shouted. "And for you to just suddenly decide that you think he's a bastard for not "being there" for Myriah, whatever the hell that means, just pisses me off, okay?" Nick turned around and let out another aggravated sound. I was getting a little worried. Nick was really getting scary. He pulled his fist back and made as if to slam it into the wall. Karen stood up, getting ready to pull him back.

Then suddenly, he was stalking towards the car and he pulled out of the driveway so fast the tires squealed. He raced out of the neighborhood. I hoped he wouldn't get a ticket; the police are hawks in this area. I turned around to look at Karen, facing me with her arms crossed on the porch.

"Look, Karen, I don't know what I said that was that wrong," I started. She held up a hand to stop me.

"Have you seen Jackie's arms lately?"

I shook my head. "No, he always wears that weird hoodie."

"Have you seen his legs?" When I was silent, she said, "I thought so. Think about it." She disappeared through the front door, slamming it behind her. I stared at the closed door for a long time. Finally, I walked around to the back but I couldn't even summon the courage to go inside through the back door. I felt like an idiot. I wanted to be alone. I sat down, heavily, on one of the chairs on the back porch and watched the sky slowly change from blue, to red, to black.

* * *

It was completely dark and I was still sitting in the same position, thinking, thinking about Jackie, about how Jackie always wears his sweatshirt and long pants even when it's 80 degrees outside. And I had just considered it another one of his idiosyncrasies. I was an idiot.

There was a sudden banging noise on the fence that surprised me. I started in my seat, trying to make out the dark figure that was climbing over the fence that separated my house from the Papadakis'. The shadow was too small to be Linny; it was Hannah. She walked towards me, shoulders hunched and shivering. She was only wearing shorts but had a big hooded zip-up wrapped around her. The sleeves were too long and her hands were swallowed up by the fleecey material. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself. Hannah looked small and tense.

"Hannah, hey, what's up?" I asked. She was looking at me with wide eyes.

"Hey listen is, um, Karen home?"

"Yeah. Hey you know, next time you can just call or maybe use the front door?" I said, trying to lighten the mood, but Hannah was obviously too stressed to take it as a joke.

"Sorry," she mumbled. I blinked several times, looking at her. She was staring off into space, looking nervous.

"Um, me too, sorry," I said. "I didn't mean it like that. Listen, want me to go get Karen for you? I'm pretty sure she's upstairs, doing homework or something."

Something in Hannah's face changed. She suddenly seemed more alert and shook her head.

"No, no, you know what? Forget it, it's not important. I'll see you at school tomorrow."

I almost made to grab her arm, to tell her it's no big deal but she kind of shied away from me and made her way to the fence door. She let herself out and walked around to go back home. No more jumping fences for her, I guess. Hannah didn't look well at all. I considered telling Karen about it but Karen probably didn't want to see me right now. I sighed and sat back down on the chair. I didn't like how things were looking at all and I was definitely not looking forward to tomorrow.

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

**:Chapter Eight:**

The next day at school, I was worried about how I was going to face Nick. As it turns out, I didn't even have to worry about it. He was so distracted with the fact that Margo had decided to come to school with him that he was actually relieved to see me.

"Thank god," he said, when he caught sight of me, in the crowded hallway. He pushed his way through and groaned dramatically when he was next to me.

"Save me, please," he said. "Spare me the torture."

I raised my eyebrows. "Uh, Nick, what's going on?"

I looked over his shoulder and saw Margo standing there, like a little dark elf, pointy and angry. Her bony shoulders were hunched, her collarbone poking the thin, black strap of her tank top. Her hair was thick and shiny, the ends sharp, as though they could cut into her arms. I remembered back to that night we talked several days ago. I had to admit, the curiosity was still there.

"What's Margo doing here?" I asked.

"She suddenly realized that the best way to annoy me was to follow me everywhere," Nick said.

"Yeah right. Maybe she just got bored of being cooped up inside all the time."

"Or more like, she wanted to see _you_," Nick said. He gave me a pointed look, as if to put all the blame of Margo being here, standing twenty feet away, on me.

"Hey," I complained. "You can't put this on me. This has nothing to do with me."

"Oh really?" Nick challenged. "Then why does Margo suddenly taken an interest to come to school mere days after she talks to you? She still talks about you then pretends like she wasn't just thinking about you. She likes you. I don't know why but she does."

"Gee thanks," I said, sarcastically. "Seriously, though, you don't know that."

Nick shrugged. "Not for sure, maybe, but I can tell. I have to go to class but if you don't meet me for lunch, your ass is toast." He turned to go; we were in different homerooms and his class was on another floor. He was probably going to be late.

"Wait," I said. I reached out to grab his arm. "Listen, about yesterday…I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know. It's not my place to judge."

Nick looked back at me; his expression was kind of hard to decipher. I never pegged him for a deep guy so basically my archive of Nick expressions was hunger, anger, and content. But whatever was on his face was a hell of a lot more complicated.

"Yeah, it's cool," he finally said. "I'm going to be late. Don't forget, don't ditch me at lunch."

I watched him weave his way through the crowd. Margo whispered something in his ear and Nick swatted her away as though she was an annoying fly. I watched her follow him, hair swinging between her bare shoulder blades.

"That was nice." I jumped. Someone's lips were very close to my own ear. I turned. It was Karen.

"What?"

"That was nice of you," she said. "Apologizing. I didn't mean to eavesdrop but I heard it. Listen, I'm sorry about yesterday too. I should have seen it coming, Nick blowing a fuse, I mean. But he doesn't hold grudges so it's okay."

_And you would know whether Nick holds grudges or not_, I thought. I immediately shook that evil little thought away.

"Right, yeah. I'm sorry, I was an idiot." I noticed bags underneath Karen's eyes. She didn't look particularly bright-eyed or bushy-tailed.

"Hey," I said softly. "What's up? Did your mom call again?"

Karen closed her eyes. "Kind of."

"What do you mean 'kind of?'"

She shook her head. "Look, I'm going to tell you because I want you to know, but I don't want to talk about it now, okay?" I nodded diligently.

"Mom actually called Dad. Talked to him. Then Dad talked to me." She took a breath. "She wants me to move back with her. Maybe Andrew but definitely me."

I stared at her, shocked. "Wait, but-"

Karen cut me off. "I said I don't want to talk about it now. But that's what's up, okay? We're going to be late; let's go to class."

I followed her mutely to class. I still wasn't one hundred percent sure what went down between Karen and her mom, but it couldn't have been pretty. And I thought Karen was happy at the "Big House" as she so affectionately calls it. She couldn't possibly move back, could she? A new worry settled itself into my stomach.

* * *

"Where's Myriah?" Karen asked, setting her lunch down.

Nick made a face. "She has a French quiz to study for. Conveniently she forgot to do it so she needs to take her lunch period to study for it."

"Who's Myriah?" Margo asked.

"The one who used to be in pageants and commercials and stuff," Nick said.

"Oh, little miss Stoneybrook?" Margo said, a smirk starting to play on her thin, red lips.

"Runner-up," Karen said, absently. She took a bite out of her sandwich, fidgeting agitatedly.

"Well where's Jackie?" I asked.

Nick shrugged. "Who knows where Jackie is these days. He might have gone off campus to grab lunch, I don't know. I don't know how he gets away with it. He skips all these classes then comes back to turn in the assignments, ace the tests, and get better grades than me. I swear the teachers are biased for red-heads or something."

Karen sighed. "This isn't good, you guys."

"What? That little miss Stoneybrook is anorexic and her boyfriend is emo because of it?" Margo said, crudely. I stared at her, shocked again for the second time that day.

"Oh come on," she said, in response to the wide-eyed stares. "You can't possibly not think that it's at least a little pathetic?"

"Actually, I don't, not even the smallest bit," Karen said, through tight lips.

"She's a moron," Margo said. "For actually falling for those stupid societal pressures of being thin."

"Well, sorry but not all of us are blessed with a prepubescent boy's body," Lindsey snapped. "Some people want to improve themselves, okay? And Myriah's not anorexic." Margo's eyebrow slid up.

"That's not what Nick said," she said, cryptically.

Lindsey looked interestedly at him. She was a huge gossip, which was one of the reasons why I wasn't attracted to her, despite the fact that she was undeniably pretty. Nick shot Margo a warning glare. "Nothing, Lindsey. Can we just eat lunch or something?"

"What did he say?" Lindsey asked, to Margo.

"You heard him, nothing," Margo said, shrugging, just to be infuriating. And it worked. Lindsey opened her mouth to snap a retort.

"Hannah, you okay?" I heard Karen say, over Lindsey and Margo's bickering.

"I'm fine," Hannah said. She looked like she didn't get any sleep either. Her hair was pulled over one shoulder and she was wearing that same baggy zip-up from the night before. I suspected it belonged to Linny. Hannah hadn't really been the same ever since Linny left for college.

"You just look a little tired," Karen said, pressing a little.

"I _said_ I was fine. Look, I just stayed up late studying, okay?" Hannah said. "Can you please stop with the inquisition?"

Karen put her hand on Hannah's shoulder. "Sorry-"

Hannah jerked away from her. "Don't _touch_ me," she snapped. She threw all of the remains of her lunch into her brown bag and stood up.

"I'm done," she announced. "I'll see you guys later." Karen stared after her, stunned.

"I mean, you agree, don't you, David?" Margo said. It took me a minute to realize that not only had she been expecting me to have been listening to the conversation, she was expecting me to contribute. I turned to her.

"What? Sorry, didn't catch that," I said.

"Don't you agree that it's at least a little pathetic when girls get eating disorders? It just shows how low their self-esteem is; I mean, is that really all your life really is? Your weight and your appearance? Don't you agree, David?"

I honestly did agree, at least a little bit. Maybe it was the whole maturity thing but I found it annoying when girls were hung up about weight and appearance. It's kind of lame to see a girl get that obsessed about weight. Yeah, I know they're all psychological disorders, so sue me that I have a little less pity for people with eating disorders than other mental disorders.

"I think Margo has a point," I said, carefully.

"Who's the heartless asshole now?" Nick said.

I buried my face in my hands. This day was not going well.

* * *

I think Karen was avoiding me. I didn't see her for the rest of the day until we drove back home. Even then, she somehow managed to keep the conversation concentrated on small talk and every time I even tried to bring up something remotely related to her mom, she would look out the window and pointedly mention something else, keeping everything carefully impersonal. Case in point:

"So what does Watson think about, you know, the whole situation?" I said, casually.

"I wonder if Margo will come to school again tomorrow," she said. Even though I was driving, I checked her expression. It was absolutely inscrutable. Sometimes Karen's face turned into such a calm, remote mask, there's absolutely nothing that I can decipher in it. She used to be such an open book. I remember her various moods and expressions, face red with anger, pale with fright, bright with excitement, but now, one by one, they have all been weeded out of her until nothing but that reserved expression is left. I want to think that the expression is just a screen, something that she has put up to veil emotions that she doesn't want anyone else to see. But lately, as Karen's becoming more and more distant, I wonder if she's shut down completely inside.

I shook these mildly melodramatic thoughts from my mind and pulled into the garage. Karen was out of the car before I even turned the engine off, the door swinging shut behind her. I rushed after her.

"Hey wait, Karen," I called. I found her in the kitchen. She was pouring herself a glass of water, looking out the window.

"Listen, Karen, it's driving me crazy. This whole deal with your mom. You're not going back, are you?" In my mind, I was screaming, _You can't go back…_

Karen's eyes fixed on my own. She looked at me for a long time, like that, as though she was trying to read things that I felt were clear in my brown eyes. Maybe she was seeking confirmation that I wanted to stay here. Maybe she was judging whether I'd be a good listener, in the mood that I'm in right now, or if I'd just lose my temper and become angry at the situation.

"I could really patch things up with my mom," she finally said, softly. "I could make things right." I stared at her, completely shocked. This whole time I had been counting on the fact that she _didn't_ want to go back. I thought we would spend nights staying up late, laughing conspiratorially over various ways of telling her mom off. Or at least, that was what the wishful thinking part of my brain had convinced me was going to happen.

"You're going back?" I said, when I found my voice. Karen sighed. She didn't seem like she wanted to talk anymore but her face had opened up. I could carefully read the complex array of emotions on her face. Guilt, anxiety, stress…none of them were good.

I slowly, hesitatingly, reached up and put my hands on her upper arms. Waiting for a protest that doesn't come, I slowly pulled her close to me. Her head rested on my chest and her hands slowly crept around my waist, holding me as tight as I was holding her.

"Whatever you do," I said, quietly. "I support you, okay? If you need me to come get you if you go to your mom's, I'll come. It doesn't matter when; just call me and I'll come. And if you decide not to go, I'll stay with you when you tell your mom that. And if you need to be alone and sort this out on your own, I can give you space."

Karen started crying at that, quietly, but definitely crying. The tears were soaking the thin material of my t-shirt. Her hair felt soft underneath my cheek. I couldn't describe how much I didn't want her to pull away.

Suddenly, the front door opened and closed and Elizabeth's voice rang out, "Kids? Is anyone home?" Karen and I jumped apart, even though we weren't really doing anything wrong. Elizabeth walked into the kitchen. She must have just dropped of Emily at tennis. Or maybe it was jazz. I couldn't keep her extracurriculars straight.

"Oh you guys are home," Elizabeth said. "Do you guys need a snack?" She noticed Karen's colored face.

"Karen honey, is something wrong?" she asked. It might have been the maternal concern in her voice, something that I'm not sure Karen ever heard from her mom, that caused Karen to turn her face away, maybe to hide fresh tears, or a flush of embarrassment.

"I have a lot of homework to do," she said, hastily, and left the room. I wanted to go after her but Elizabeth was now giving _me_ a weird look.

"Did you guys get into a fight?" she asked. I had to internally grin at that. _It couldn't be further from the truth, Mom. Actually, I have a huge crush on my stepsister, weird huh?_ It was actually shocking to hear myself say that, even inside my mind. I shook my head. That wasn't…_true_ was it? Karen and I are close, extremely close, closer than people would have expected. That's all.

"I think we're good on the snacks," I said, and left the room. Racing up the stairs, I managed to catch up with Karen as she was about to enter her room.

"Karen," I said, grasping her arm.

"You know what you said? About giving me space?" She was staring at the hand that was on her arm, not my face. "I need space right now."

She looked up. "Not for long. Just…just right now, okay?"

I nodded, numbly. Karen gently wrestled herself from my grasp and went into the room and closed the door softly but firmly. I heard the lock click. I stared at the white wood and wondered what I was going to do. Homework? Nothing pressing to do, nothing due tomorrow, at least.

Suddenly I remembered something. Hannah's drawn, tired face came to mind and her angry expression, snapping at Karen. She was feisty, yeah, but she was almost never sharp with Karen. I went down the stairs and out the back door. I settled myself in one of the chairs on the back porch to think. And wait.

* * *

I realized I liked the outside. It was peaceful and I could actually think, as opposed to being inside the house where a million different things were always going on, even though there were way less people than there used to be. I hoped Hannah would be back. I guessed she would. Hope or guess, I was right. It was late, almost ten, and completely dark, when I saw Hannah jump the fence again. She paced back and forth several times, as though contemplating on whether or not to approach the back door and knock. She started when she saw me sitting before her.

"Jesus, David!" she gasped. "You could have said something."

"Sorry," I said. "Listen, Hannah, I'm worried about you. You've been acting weird since yesterday." I thought for a second. "Actually, no, you've been acting weird all week. You've been really quiet and distracted. Moody." It was true. We had all just forgotten about it in the midst of Margo being back and Myriah and Jackie. _And Lindsey_, my mind added.

Suddenly, Hannah started crying. One of those cries where your whole body gets into it. She sunk to the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest, rocking back and forth, crying. Her whole body was shaking and her breath was short and came in gasps.

"Whoa, Hannah, Hannah," I said. I got off my chair and sat on the ground next to her. By the light of the moon, I could see her pretty well. Her face was buried in her knees. I could see the tears stain the fabric of her sweatpants. I couldn't think of anything to say so I kept repeating her name over and over again, like a mantra, like a lullaby.

"Hannah, what's up?" I said, softly. She was really starting to worry me, just sitting there rocking back and forth, crying harder and harder.

"You can tell me, Hannah," I said, soothingly. "Hannah please." She just shook her head and kept crying.

"Hannie…" It was the childhood endearment that did it. She looked up at me.

"I just thought…I just thought it'd be special, you know?" she said. She pulled the sleeve of her shirt over her hand and raked it across her face fiercely. She took a shuddering breath.

"I was so stupid," she said. Big tears were still rolling down her flushed cheeks.

"What was? What wasn't special?" I said, quietly. Hannah buried her face in her knees again. I tentatively reached out to stroke her rich, dark hair. She moved so quickly away from me that I started with surprise. She looked at me, eyes wide, breathing hard. There was a pregnant pause.

"My first time," she said.

It suddenly dawned on me. She must have had sex with Scott Hsu. They had been going out for ages, since second grade, though seventh officially, seriously.

"It was at the party at Bobby's house last Friday," she said. The tears were starting again but she didn't make an effort to wipe them away. They glimmered in her eye and on her chin, winking before dropping to the ground.

"I really didn't want to go," Hannah said. "But Scott wanted me to come."

I frowned. I wasn't fond of Bobby and Scott's group. They had a bad rep of doing drugs and being violent. They were the typical bad boy, gorilla thugs.

"It wasn't even in some room alone," she whispered. Hannah shut her eyes, closed them hard. "He just pushed me into the bathroom. The music was too loud, they couldn't hear me. He started kissing me, telling me I wanted it."

She paused. I felt sick. I didn't want to hear the rest of the story.

"And then it happened." She shrugged her shoulders, as though in defeat. She covered her face in her knees, pulling her arms around her. "I told him to take it slow. He wouldn't listen. I told him I wasn't ready yet but he just kept telling me I wanted it." Her voice was muffled but I got a cold, foreboding feeling in my stomach.

"I kept saying no, but it's like he couldn't hear me."

I had to restrain myself from grabbing Hannah. "You said no? Hannah, you said no?" I asked, just to make it crystal clear.

She nodded. "But it doesn't matter. He was already in."

I shook my head. "Hannah, _no_. It doesn't matter when you say it. If he didn't stop after you said 'no,' that's rape."

Hannah shook her head miserably. "No, I wanted it. I'd been teasing him for months. I let him take me to the bathroom."

I wanted to punch something, I was so frustrated.

"Hannah, it doesn't matter if you led him on or even if you suggested _going_ to the bathroom. Stop covering for him. He didn't stop when you wanted him to. I'm sorry, Hannah, but Scott raped you. You have to report him, or at least see a counselor or _something_."

Hannah shook her head again. "No."

"Hannah, it was rape if he didn't stop when you said 'no.'" I was starting to feel like a broken record.

"No, that's not what I meant." Hannah turned away from me and I felt my stomach involuntarily drop when I heard her take a deep breath.

"It wasn't Scott." She turned back around. "It was Rick."

I just stared at her, mouth open in complete shock for the third time today.

"Don't tell Karen," she said, and she was gone, jumping the fence that separated our house from hers. I could see her running across her massive backyard by the light of the streetlamp. She disappeared through her back door.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

**: Chapter Nine :**

Thursday comes and people I don't even know came to me to ask me when the party starts tomorrow.

"Look, are you even over sixteen?" I asked, to the last kid who approached me. He looked like a shiny-faced, innocent freshman. I wasn't interested in having little kids running around my house, breaking Watson's paperweights or whatever, screaming about how cool it was to be at their first high school party. I should have been nicer, I admit, but my mind was too bogged down with absolutely everything. I hardly slept last night and I was paying for it now. I felt so heavy and tired…just…needed…sleep…

I tried to shake myself awake and walked into the nearest bathroom to splash some water on my face. I stared at my reflection. Why was I the one looking haggard when everyone else around me was the one with the problems? I felt their problems dragging at my bones, dragging me down. Damn, I really needed some sleep.

My hand went automatically to the paper towel dispenser only to find that it was empty. Grumbling to myself, I checked the stalls and found toilet paper in the third one. I cringed as the fragile paper broke and pilled into little balls that got stuck between my fingers, clinging to the water. I hated drying my hands with toilet paper.

Suddenly, the bathroom door swung open so hard that it hit the wall.

"I can't believe you actually bagged her." I tried to place the name. It sounded either like Bobby or Chris. I couldn't tell. Their voices were incredibly similar and they've known each other, and Karen, since elementary school. The whole rezoning thing took some getting used to, having all these kids around school that I don't know but Karen has known for five or more years.

"Like it was hard. She was begging for it." That was Rick. And I knew who they were talking about. I contemplated on whether or not I should walk out to confront them or wait a little bit. I quickly replay what Hannah told me. She told me not to tell Karen…but she didn't mention in particular that I had not pretend like I didn't know...still, I opted for waiting.

"Does Scott know about this?" asked the Bobby Chris amalgam.

"No, and it's going to stay that way," Rick said. "But he should be willing to share. He says he's been getting some since freshman year, like practically made him have sex with her, she's such a slut."

I couldn't help myself. I stormed out of the bathroom and before Rick or Chris (who I only recognized from the long hair in my peripheral vision; Bobby has always worn his hair cut close) realize there was someone else in the bathroom, I pushed Rick up against the wall, my hand grabbing the neck of his stupid t-shirt that says "I'm a Keeper!" (yeah fucking right), twisting it and pushing into his neck. Rick wheezed a little bit and gave me a contemptuous look, as if he was in the position to be passing judgments.

"Stay away from Hannah," I said. "You are fucking slime. You stay the hell away from her."

Chris has already disentangled me and forced me off of Rick, who was rubbing his neck, laughing, almost.

"What? Did she put out for you too, David? Is that why you're so quick to defend her? You don't even know how she really is. She pretends to be so innocent but you don't even know."

"You lie, Torres," I said. "You're full of shit." I wrestle my arms from Chris' hold.

"Yeah? She was the one that pushed me into the bedroom at the beginning of sophomore year. She begged to let her go down on me. I told her I wasn't that kind of guy. If you remember, I was still going out with Karen then. She wouldn't leave me alone for a week after that and finally I let in, to make her happy. I'm a nice guy, you know," he said, and smirked.

I didn't even know I had this much control over my body because my mind was screaming to kill that bastard, or at least, punch that smug look off his face. Rick regarded me carefully, noting my silence.

"Oh, so maybe Hannah's not the reason why you're playing the hero," Rick said. "Is it…Karen? Did Karen tell you not to let me go around spreading rumors about her Three Musketeer?" His voice dripped with sarcasm. "You're a fool, Thomas. You're a pansy who pretends like he's fucking royalty when actually it's just your mom who's a whore and managed to get with a millionaire. Funny how there's mother daughter similarities when there's no blood relation, huh?"

I lunged at him then, and knocked him, hard, feeling my knuckles connect with Rick's face. Chris was on me in an instant, pulling me away. Rick stood up slowly, pressing a hand to his bloodied lip. I tried to twist away from Chris but he held me tight, my arms pressed into my back, hurting my elbows.

"You're the reason why Karen dumped me," Rick said, washing his hands and his lip carefully. "That's why I started going to Hannah, since you know, Karen wasn't giving me any. If she actually liked me half as much as she liked you, I would have never had to go to Hannah. Then suddenly, she dumps me and walks around this place like she's queen when she's actually just fucking you at home." If Chris wasn't holding me, still, hard, I would have smashed his face into the ceramic sink.

"Didn't know incest turned you on," he continued. He wiped his hands off on his jeans, when he noticed the paper dispenser was empty. He started walking to the door and paused at the threshold. "So I guess what I'm saying is, you should watch how you treat me. People will fuck you and Karen up bad when they find out. Imagine this bloody lip on Karen, okay?"

I thought he was leaving, then, but suddenly he was back and he punched me in the stomach extremely hard. Chris dropped me in that moment and I was on my knees, gasping for air.

"Think about it, Thomas." And then Rick and Chris were gone.

I hated Rick at that moment. Absolutely hated him. Is that why he hated me so much? Because in his twisted little mind, he thought that I had broken up him and Karen? I didn't even know he liked her that much. Karen always made it seem as though they had drifted apart, that the break-up was mutual.

I also didn't know Rick's penchant for being so melodramatic. He could star in his own soap opera if he wanted to. I try to cling to this thought, trying to make myself chuckle as I rolled to my side and got on my knees. I put my hand on the bathroom wall to steady myself and I got to my feet. My eyes drew level with something written on the bathroom wall. _Hannah P. is a whore_. I rolled my eyes and tried to erase it when I realized someone must have had the bright idea of using permanent marker. Someone else, underneath it, had written, _birds of a feather_…I wasn't sure who that could refer to.

Myriah had a pretty spotless reputation, considering how hung up she was on Jackie. And she was apparently too busy being messed up in her own way to involve herself with multiple guys. Lindsey…that was altogether possible. Maybe I wasn't the only one who knew about her fling with Mr. Mulberry. That left Karen…I didn't even want to consider what sort of rumors were flying around about her. I left the bathroom, swinging the door satisfying hard, hearing it hit the wall. It echoed through the empty hallway.

* * *

"Where were you during English?" Karen asked me, catching up with me as I was walking to the lunchroom. I didn't feel like answering.

"Not in English?" was my witty answer. She gave me a withering look.

"Did you skip?"

"Not on purpose," I said, hoping I sounded both convincing and reassuring. Yeah, I hadn't planned on skipping, but it was already ten minutes in when my little escapade with Rick 'psycho' Torres ended and I wasn't in the mood to sit through forty minutes of _The Great Gatsby._

"Oh god," I said. We were standing at the doorway of the cafeteria and already I saw Margo sitting at our usual table, thin arms crossed, glaring at everyone, but Lindsey in particular. I noticed right away that Hannah was missing. So was Jackie, but he had been missing the past several lunches, it seemed like.

"Come on, Nick will kill us if we skip out on him," Karen said, tugging on my arm. She was nice enough to sit on the other side of Margo, letting me sit across from them instead.

"Sorry, but the party is for people who go to this school only," Lindsey was saying, in her snotty voice, when we sat down.

"Oh, elitist, I'm impressed with your originality," Margo said, in reply.

"You're not invited, okay?" Lindsey said, her shrill voice getting louder.

"I think that's up for David and Karen to decide," said Margo. She looked at both of us pointedly. I'm pretty sure she would have had absolutely zero interest in going to this party if Lindsey hadn't made such a fuss about not letting her come in the first place.

Karen busied herself with opening her can of soda and peeling the wrapper of her straw. She stuck it in the can and took a long sip, as though she was expecting me to handle this thing. I kicked her under the table. She snorted soda and coughed, glaring at me venomously. I didn't care. I was not going to get in the middle of this. Karen rolled her eyes.

"Whatever, Margo can come if she wants to, she's Nick's brother and we've known her for ages," Karen said. Margo looked satisfied. Lindsey looked enraged.

"Thanks Karen," Margo said, in a sweeter voice than any of us ever heard. She turned back to Lindsey. "I hope you can get that healthy golden glow out of your palms before tomorrow. They're a pretty big turn off." She got up and left, going who knows where. Lindsey flushed a dark red and quickly clasped her hands together. Her palms were bright orange from self-tanner.

"I hate that girl," she muttered.

"Shut up," Nick said. "I'm the only one allowed to hate her, okay?"

"She'd be hot if she didn't wear black all the time," was Erik's asinine suggestion.

"Ah you're nuts, Erik," Nick said. "You'd think anything in an ice-cream colored polo shirt would be hot."

Erik shrugged. "Hey I know what I like. Can't you guys do some sort of movie transformation thing on her? You know, like how the weird girl suddenly turns into a fox?"

"I would not waste speck of make-up on that girl," Lindsey said, vehemently. Of course, coming from her, this was supposed to be a pretty insulting statement.

I noticed Hannah walking towards the table, wearing the same pullover, a third day in a row, I think. Her nails looked scraggly and ragged and her hair was dull.

"Hey Han," Karen said, hesitantly.

"Hey." Hannah pulled out an apple from her lunch bag and bit into it. She started chewing methodically and everyone at the table looked at her.

"Hannah, is something…wrong?" Myriah asked, tentatively. Whoops, you shouldn't go there, Myriah. You have enough problems of your own.

"What she's _trying_ to say is that you look like you haven't showered in a week," Lindsey said.

"Fuck off, I've been busy," Hannah snapped.

"Busy enough to ignore personal hygiene?" Lindsey wrinkled her nose. Hannah flicked the uneaten remains of her apple at Lindsey, who shrieked and batted away the already mealy fruit.

"Christ, Hannah, what is wrong with you?" she asked.

"Hey, have you guys seen Rick? He looks like he ran into some trouble today," Nick cut in. He had probably grown up listening to girls bicker all the time; I can't blame him for wanting to stop any potential fights. Hannah's head snapped up at the name.

"What about him?" Karen is the one that asked although it was obvious, at least to me, that Hannah wanted to.

"His lip, it's all swollen and bloody," Nick said, and paused to take a bite out of his sandwich. "I was talking to Bobby about it in between classes and he said he didn't know what happened either. Rick won't talk about it."

What? Rick didn't want to share with the entire student body about how he kicked my ass? Then again, now I do know that he and Hannah have, or had, a thing and he doesn't want Scott knowing about it. I realized something important then; Rick didn't really have the one up on me. We were even. We could mess up each other's lives easily if one of us wanted to, but only if we were willing to sacrifice our own. I wasn't comfortable with this uneasy status quo. I knew one of us was going to rock it soon.

"Bobby says Rick wasn't beat this morning," Nick continued.

Karen's a smart girl. Everyone knows it. So I could already see the wheels turning in her head as she gave me a sharp look.

"Yeah? Did Bobby mention when he thought it happened?" she asked.

Nick shrugged. "He doesn't know but Rick didn't show up during science."

"Oh, science," Karen said, sounding all pleasant. "Is that second period?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's weird," Myriah said. She was looking at Nick and Karen, back and forth. And none of us had missed that she has shredded her fries and moved them around in patterns but never once had a soggy piece of potato touch her lips. But this wasn't exactly the best time to mention it.

The bell rang. I was never so glad to start heading to math. I was saved from Karen's wrath, at least for now.

"Whoops, I have to go talk to the teacher before class," I lied. It was so fake that I'm sure my nose protruded a couple of inches further. But I wasn't about to risk being cornered by Karen and given an interrogation. Hopefully I could put this off until the end of the day, or maybe even later.

I left but I could feel Karen's unwavering, blue eyes following me. For the first time, they were unnerving.

* * *

"Well?"

I closed my locker with an internal groan. Karen was standing there, next to me. She had shown up after class, when the hallways had relatively emptied and now we were almost completely alone.

"Well what?" I asked, trying to pathetically bide for time.

"You did that to Rick, I know it. Don't try to lie to me, David, you can never look me in the eye and lie."

"And why would I do that to Rick?" I asked. "I hardly know the guy."

Karen studied my face.

"You tell me," she said.

I hesitated. I couldn't. I really couldn't. I promised Hannah. If I told Karen now, the whole ugly truth would come out. Even if Karen wasn't hung up on the fact that her best friend had gone and perhaps even propositioned herself to her then boyfriend, Karen would probably want to deal with Rick herself. And then Rick would know that Karen knows. And then Rick would tell Karen that he knows about…about us. Or maybe Karen doesn't feel the same way and she'd be just as disgusted about the idea as Rick is. As the whole world is.

Either way, if I say, it won't be pretty. I can't say it. So I won't.

"I didn't have anything to do with Rick today," I said.

"You're lying."

"I didn't," I said, again.

"Look me in the eye and tell me you really had nothing to do with Rick Torres."

I'm doing this for Hannah. Hannah has absolutely no one in the world right now. Who can she tell? Karen? Scott? The two people she's closest to she can't tell. I can't break her trust. I can't turn her away when she has no one left.

I turned and looked Karen straight in her eyes. Her pupils shrunk so much in her frustration that her eyes were almost completely blue. Now I realize where the term "icy stare" comes from.

"I didn't have anything to do with Rick. I don't know anything about what happened today," I said.

Karen held my gaze for a minute longer.

"Congratulations," Karen said, softly. "You win."

She turned away from me and walked away. I closed my eyes but not in regret. I didn't regret what I did. No good could have come of telling Karen the truth, not now. My hands were completely tied. I leaned my head against my locker. All I wanted was sleep.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note_: I'm really sorry for the switching tenses in chapters and within chapters. Every time I think I'm comfortable in present tense, I find myself slipping into past tense, vice versa. I promise to work at it

**: Chapter 10 :**

It was the last day of school. People were cleaning out their lockers and tossing yearbooks back and forth. I lost track of mine. I was sure that it would come back to me eventually. I never was a fan of all of this end of the year thing, with the trading of photos, yearbooks, and fake promises that wouldn't last in the summer. I could hear Maria Kilbourne worrying that her boyfriend was going to cheat on her when he's in Jersey this summer.

I pulled out some crumpled up notes and unstuck the photos that Karen had stuck onto the inside of the door. There was one of all of us, at the beach last summer, sand stuck to our hair and swimsuits. Hannah was beaming into the camera and Rick had his arms wrapped around Karen. Rick was always on the outskirts of our group but he used to hang out with us sometimes when he was still going out with Karen. I wondered if Hannah had already been flirting with Rick then, if they were already fooling around behind Karen's back. There was Myriah and Jackie, standing as close to each other as they possibly could without touching each other.

I was sitting on the sand with Jessica Ramsey. Now _that_ was weird. She seemed foreign to me, now, now that a whole year had past, even though that summer I had foolishly begun to think that maybe it could be it. Then again, I was freshly sixteen and completely enamored with Jessica, the beautiful, nineteen year old ballet dancer. It was amazing that it even lasted three months. I thought about it with a chuckle. She was (and is, at least she seems to be, from the random e-mails we send back and forth every once in a while) incredibly nice. I kind of missed her.

I was suddenly engulfed in a wave of nostalgia. I wanted us to be back at the beach like we had been just a year ago. Then, my eyes snagged on Hannah and Rick and Karen, then on Myriah's too thin body, wrapped in a sarong like a brightly colored, Hawaiian print wraith. I realized maybe we had always been a little messed up, that things were never as great as we pretended. Maybe we were just sick of pretending now.

I hesitated with that photo but eventually dropped it into the garbage bag at my feet. We can always make new memories, ones that aren't laced with backstabbing and depression. The rest of the locker clean up went fast and easy and I shut my locker, ready to go home.

Karen wasn't talking to me. She wasn't doing it in a really malicious way or anything, to get me back for yesterday. I had the feeling that she was more preoccupied. She still smiled at me when we passed in the hallway but she definitely had something weighing hard on her mind. She approached me, now, though, but it looked like it was for some reason other than catching a ride home with me.

"I'm getting a ride home with Hannah, okay?" she said.

"When are they leaving again?" I asked, meaning Watson and my mom.

Karen wrinkled her face in thought. "Uh, Dad left this morning. Elizabeth I think is leaving at four. You can see her off, okay?" She left before I could answer. I wondered if maybe Hannah was going to tell her about Rick. I thought back to it. I really doubted it. Hannah was too weighed down in guilt; I could imagine her weighing her chances and how she would word it. No matter what, the fact that she led Rick on would come out.

I felt a sudden, incredible rush of pity for Hannah. I couldn't believe she actually found herself at blame for this mess. She appeared at school with a clean shirt, shining hair, and a completely fake smile on her face. Everyone was fooled because they wanted to be. Everyone had enough problems on their own without having to worry about Hannah. They wanted to believe that she was okay. Each smile and hug was like a slap to the face. The "You look great, Han!" and the "We have to hang out this summer!" were like little insults that I knew stung her; I knew this from the way her smile grew tighter and smaller as the day wore on. I saw through it all and wished I wasn't the only one willing. I needed to talk to her again.

"Do you have your car?"

I jumped at the question. I hadn't realized there was someone standing right behind me. I turned around. It was Margo.

"What?" I thought back to the question. "Yeah. Yeah I do. Why?"

"Nick ditched me to take out Melody," she said. "I need a ride home. Karen won't mind, right?"

I sighed. "It doesn't matter. She went home with Hannah."

That's how I ended up with Margo sitting in the passenger seat of my car as I carefully backed out of my parking spot and drove away. We drove in silence. I glanced at her without her noticing. She was staring straight ahead. I enjoy silence so even I didn't know why I suddenly said, "What are you thinking about?"

She glanced back at me. "I want coffee," she said.

"What?"

"I want coffee," she said, again. And suddenly, she grabbed the steering wheel and pulled it down.

"Margo! What the hell are you doing!" We crossed into the next lane and I thanked whatever higher power up there that I had stopped believing in that there were no cars in that lane.

"There's a good coffee shop this way," she said. I rolled my eyes.

"I ears aren't busted, Margo," I said. "You could have just told me."

"So you could make some excuse about how you had to get home soon?" She had a point there.

I hadn't been to this part of Stoneybrook except once when Watson took Karen and me out for pasta at a nice restaurant. It was a clean, quiet part of town where office buildings lined each side of the road, the lower level being privately owned restaurants, boutiques, and coffee shops.

"That one," Margo ordered, pointing to a café on the street with big windows and clean flowerbeds lining the windows. She forced me to parallel park, which wasn't exactly my forte in driving, making condescending, insulting comments at my lack of ability to straighten out properly.

"Look, I'm the one with the drivers license okay?" I barked.

Finally, we got out of the car. I pushed open the door to the café and was rewarded by a refreshing bust of cold air. It was air-conditioned, thank god. Even though it was only June, the temperature was already pushing 90 degrees.

It was one of those nice coffee shops that was frequented by business people carrying heavy black laptop bags. It was the kind where there was actually a hostess that showed you to your seat and coffee was served to you and everything on the menu pushed six dollars at least.

"Why are we here again?" I demanded as we waited for the hostess to notice us. We were a couple of sweaty kids so maybe they wouldn't give us any service.

"This is the only place in this god-forsaken town that actually serves strong coffee," Margo said. The café was relatively empty. There were a couple of businessmen chatting over cups of iced coffee in a booth in the corner, and there was a couple seated in a table in the middle of the café. The man's back was to me but the woman seated across from him looked vaguely familiar. She had blonde hair that touched her shoulders and square- rimmed glasses.

"Two?" A waitress had approached us, barely covering her withering, condescending expression.

"Yes two," Margo snapped. I rolled my eyes. I hoped she'd never consider a job as a stewardess. Or a salesperson. Or anything that might even indirectly involve having to interact with other people. We were led to one of the booths that were lined up along the windows. When I sat down, I could see that we had a great view of…the sidewalk and my crappy parallel parking job. The waitress slapped the menus down on the table and left.

"Yeesh, what a bitch," Margo said.

"Maybe if you were more polite," I shoot back.

"She walked up to us looking like she just smelled a decomposing animal," Margo said. "Like I have any motivation to be nice to profiling hostesses."

"You're just paranoid."

We silently open our menus and look at the drinks. I was right. The least fancy thing on the menu was an Americano but even that was four dollars. But it included free refills. Well, I knew what I was getting. Having decided, I shut the menu and looked around me. The couple was seated to my left. They were holding hands on top of the table, the man slowly rubbing his thumb back and forth across the woman's knuckles in a frighteningly intimate gesture for a public setting. Embarrassed, I studied the woman instead and tried to place her. She did look awfully familiar. Was she a former teacher? This was bothering me.

After a minute, I thought to look at the man and when I did, my eyes bugged out and I literally opened my mouth and sucked in air in surprise, like I was a fish gasping for air or something equally foolish.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Da-" I kicked Margo, cutting her off before she could say my name. I opened the menu and angled it so that my face was covered and I leaned forward.

"Hide me," I hissed. By the sounds of the chairs scraping across the ground, I guessed that Watson and the woman were getting ready to leave. Oh no. I chanced a look. Watson was getting up and starting to put on his jacket, his eyes scanning the café. He was going to see me any minute now. I knew it.

"Hide me, _quick_!"

Suddenly, before I realized what was happening, Margo had slid into my side of the booth next to me, pushed me against the window, and kissed me.

"Mmrpff!" was my muffled protest, but Margo punched me in the thigh and didn't stop. I had to admit, though, I was effectively covered from view by Margo. But of course I wasn't thinking about that at the time. All I could feel was this crazy rush of panic and…well, something else. I can't quite place it even now. I could hear footsteps approaching and I realized it must have been the waitress. I opened one eye and saw Margo, not even turning around, hold up one finger, as if to say "one minute." I caught the irate expression on the waitress' face before she walked away.

Just as Margo had started kissing me, she stopped.

"What was _that!_" I almost shouted. She looked back at me, eyes wide with excitement.

"You tell me," she said, bouncing up and down on the seat slightly.

_Uh, what?_

"What?"

"That was your dad, right?" she asked.

"Step-dad," I said, but it was an automatic response. My mind was still stuck on the part where Margo's thin, red lips had touched mine. I felt my face flushing. And I never blush.

"Yeesh, sorry David, but that didn't look good," Margo said. I wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about. She climbed over me, putting on knee on either side of my legs so that she was, in essence, straddling me. From where her black shirt separated from her jeans, I could see a flat, white strip of stomach and hip bones pushing the waistband of her pants. I blushed again then realized she was actually getting to the window. Margo had her face pressed against the glass, peering through it. I craned my neck to see what she was looking at. It was Watson and that woman climbing into a car together.

I saw the waitress approach again and she looked flat-out pissed off at the current situation. I meekly held up one finger like Margo had done earlier and the woman stalked off.

Finally, Margo climbed off of me and slid back into her side of the booth.

"Definitely didn't look good," she said, again.

"You're the one that did it all!" I said, my voice sounding embarrassingly shocked and squeaky high.

"Not that, you moron," she said. "I mean your dad. And Mrs. Engle."

"Mrs. Engle?"

"_Karen_'s mom," Margo said, raising her eyebrow, giving me a significant look. "Your dad's ex-wife."

"That was Karen's mom!"

"Yeah, Karen's mom, Mrs. Engle, Seth's wife. Haven't you ever seen her before?"

I shook my head.

"Well, that's her," Margo said. "I've only seen her a couple of time when I was young but even I know what she looks like. And you're supposed to be Karen's stepbrother." She scoffed.

The waitress came back, seeing that we were in a less compromising position.

"You kids realize this is a café, right? Not a brothel?"

"Uh thanks," Margo said, all sarcastic. "I'll remember that; places with cheap décor, pseudo jazz, and tacky waitresses are cafes. Got it."

"Uh, I'll have an Americano?" I said, quickly, riding over the last half of what Margo said.

"Iced coffee," was Margo's order. I wouldn't be surprised if the waitress was going to spit in Margo's drink multiple times before bringing it out.

"Well? What do you think that means?" Margo asked, her eyes were wide and she sounded excited. "Are things going okay with your parents?"

I frowned in thought. "I _think_ they are. Watson seems fine. Just a little busier in work than usual but he and my mom took a vacation together a couple of weekends ago."

"So nothing about how he might want to get back together with his ex-wife?"

"No," I shot back, a little more defensively than I thought I was feeling. The waitress came back with the drinks. I would have been a little more hesitant about drinking the coffee if I were Margo, but she didn't seem to care and knocked it back like it was alcohol.

"Look, maybe they were just discussing stuff about Karen and Andrew."

"While holding hands in a quaint little café?" Margo asked. "This far out in Stoneybrook where there's smaller chance that someone they know might recognize them?"

I changed the subject before Margo could build an even more convincing argument. Even though we chatted about more mundane things, I could tell both of us were curious as hell about what was going on, except Margo wanted to know as soon as possible and I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to find out.


	11. Chapter 11

**: Chapter Eleven :**

"I don't know why I'm dropping you off when you're going to be coming back over in a couple of hours," I said, as I pulled up to the Pike's driveway.

Margo raised an eyebrow. "That's assuming I'm coming," she said.

"Like you have anything better to do," I shot back, and she laughed. We walked up to the front door together and Margo didn't even bother knocking or trying the doorbell. The door was perpetually unlocked; I personally found that kind of unnerving but the Pikes' philosophy was that they didn't have anything worth stealing anyway (all their electronics are ancient and apparently Mr. Pike's laptop stays at work) and they have so much random paraphernalia that whatever robbers might pilfer, they'd be glad to see it gone, just so they can have more space. When they put it that way, I guess it kind of makes sense but it still seemed unnecessarily dangerous. When I asked Nick whether they locked their doors at night, Nick said only when they remembered to. I always made sure to check the locks on their house before going to bed whenever I was spending the night after that.

We were greeted by an empty family room and living room, though both still looked like a lived in, homey mess. There were voices coming from the kitchen, the door half open.

"Well what'd you do with the cake?"

"I…I ate it."

"You _ate_ it? You ate the cake? Claire! That cake was for Mallory's birthday!"

We followed the voices into the kitchen and found Nick looking exasperated and Claire looking sheepish.

"God, Claire, even Pow knows not to eat the cake! You're fourteen, not four." The Pike's ancient basset hound was lying on the tiled floor like a furry beached whale. He was seriously reaching worrisome limits with his size.

"What's going on?" Margo asked.

"Claire ate Mallory's birthday cake," Nick said, scowling. "And Mallory's going to be home any minute."

"You ate the _whole_ thing?" Margo asked, her eyebrows raised. "What are you, pregnant?"

Claire blushed and pulled at the end of her ponytail. "No," she said, kind of sullenly. "I was really hungry."

Margo studied Claire for a minute longer.

"You had a boy over," she announced.

"What?" Nick spluttered. He looked from Margo to Claire. Claire was turning an even deeper shade of red, confirming Margo's statement.

"How'd you know that?" he asked Margo, looking impressed with her for once. Then he went back to being mad at Claire.

"Not only did you have a boy over when no one was home, which is definitely like the _one_ thing Mom and Dad don't let us do, you couldn't just go to your room and fool around with him like any one of us would have done! You had to go and devour an entire birthday cake with your stupid prepubescent boyfriend!"

"He's not prepubescent and he's not my boyfriend," Claire muttered.

"You're not really helping yourself here," I told Claire. To Nick I asked, "Well when's Mallory coming home? There's enough time to go to the store and buy a new cake, right?"

"Mom made this one," Nick said, sounding a lot like Claire when he's gloomy.

"So?" Margo said. "You remember what color it was, right? Just buy one the same color, eat a lot of it and leave the rest in a wreck. Mom won't know the difference when she comes home. You know how we are with food. It's seriously only edible like a second. The minute we're through with it, the leftovers look so gross even Pow doesn't want it."

"But isn't she going to be mad that we didn't wait for her and Dad?" Nick asked. Margo shrugged.

"Don't bother guys," said a new voice. We all jumped. It was Mallory standing at the door, holding two large bags.

"Ate my cake, huh Claire?" she said, with a wry grin.

"Mallory!" Claire shrieked, and jumped to her older sister. Maybe Nick was wrong and Claire really was four, not fourteen. Mallory was two inches taller than Margo who told me she was only five feet and three inches. Her curly, dark red hair was pulled back from her face into a tight, bouncy ponytail and she was a plain white long sleeved t-shirt and shorts. Mallory was always the odd sheep in the family, looks wise anyway, with her red hair and freckles and pale complexion that sunburned often. Everyone else in the family had dark brown hair and eyes and tanned easily. Nick, Margo, and Claire were already tan, a healthy gold color as opposed to Mallory.

Mallory took turns hugging everyone else, even Margo consented to a short, brusque hug.

"Glad to be back?" Margo asked.

"Are you?" was the answer back and Margo smiled a little. I guess they were more similar than I had realized. Mallory then noticed me; I was already feeling a little awkward from having to witness this mini family reunion.

"Vanessa won't be home for another week," she informed me, bluntly. I blushed. I actually blushed. I went from feeling a little awkward to full on.

Margo rolled her eyes.

"He dated Vanessa like years ago," she said. "They're not together anymore."

"Really?" Mallory studied me. "What happened?"

"Uh, can we not discuss my past relationships here?" I asked. Nick smirked.

"Don't forget," he said. "He dated Margo here too."

Mallory looked exasperated but amused. "Geez David, you're just going through everyone in the family aren't you? Who's next? Claire or Nick or me?"

Claire giggled.

"This is kind of unfair," I said, feeling a little put off.

"Who's the lucky guy?" Margo suddenly asked Claire. I looked at her, thankful to have the attention diverted from me. She took no notice of my gratitude.

"Who's who's lucky guy?" Mallory asked.

"Claire had a boy over," Nick said.

"Oh god," Mallory said. "I still remember when you used to throw tantrums and say 'silly billy goo goo' after everyone's name. Thank god you grew out of thinking that was cute fast."

"Well?" Margo prompted.

"Jmaenewen," Claire mumbled.

"Come again?"

"Jamie Newton."

"Good for you," Margo said. "Wait until Jen finds out. She'll pop a baby out when she hears that one."

"God Margo, I forgot you were so crude," Mallory said. "And Jamie Newton? Oh god. Now I really feel old. I need to unpack."

Mallory started lugging both of her bags out when I offered to help. That was how I ended up in the bedroom she used to share with Vanessa, sitting on Vanessa's bed, watching her unpack. I smoothed a hand over the coverlet. I remembered lying on this bed once, getting the covers damp because Vanessa and I were absolutely soaking wet, having run from school after Vanessa's ancient car broke down unexpectedly. Our noses were cold and rainwater beaded down her sleek, dark hair and pale shoulders. I remembered searching and finding the smooth curve of her neck and collarbone with my mouth and how empty and quiet the house seemed with no one in it, for once.

"Daydreaming about the good old days with Vanessa?" Mallory asked.

No point in lying. I grew up being babysat by Mallory and knew her pretty well. I was comfortable with her.

"How'd you know?" I asked.

"Hey, I live in a house full of teenage guys," she reminded me. "Or at least, I used to."

"Adam, Byron, and Jordon are twenty this year, aren't they?" I asked. Mallory thought for a minute.

"Yeah, you're right. They are. Jesus, time goes by fast."

"Yeah?"

Mallory sat down on her bed across from me. "Yeah. It doesn't feel like it's been that long since I was still babysitting you."

"Hey now," I said. "It feels like ages to me."

"I miss living at home with everyone else. I mean, I love college and I don't even know if I'd go back to how things were, living at home, being a middle school, high school student if I had the choice but I do miss it. I guess it's weird because I'm not even that far from home. Just a forty-five minute drive, you know?"

The Pikes have a deal with their kids. They'll pay for tuition if they go to the local college, but will have to pay for half of basically everything if they decided to go out of state. Mallory decided to stay but Vanessa had basically booked it out of here to New York as soon as she could. Last time I checked, she had to hold down two part time jobs to pay for her half, eve though she had received financial aid.

"At least you're the oldest," I said. "You get to do the leaving. I get to watch everyone else leave."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's like Watson and Mom watch Karen and me and silently hope that we want to stay in Stoneybrook. I can only imagine what it'd be like for Emily Michelle. But Mom especially is clingy, because, you know, I'm her last…real kid or whatever."

"How tactless of you," Margo said, from the door. "Don't let Karen or Emily Michelle hear you say that."

I scowled. "You know what I meant."

"Yeah, but seriously," she said, and was gone.

"So what's going on with you two?" asked Mallory, waggling her coppery eyebrows up and down ridiculously.

"Nothing," I said truthfully. Or at least, I thought it was truthful.

"Don't lie to me David. I still remember when you were David Michael and you played on Kristy's softball team."

"Hey, that team was pretty decent," I objected. "And I'm serious. Nothing."

"Well." Mallory looked at me for a second. "Well okay. I mean, it's a two way street, obviously."

"Huh?"

"What I mean is that it takes two to tango."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks Mallory but I hoped that you had given up on being an author? You can stop with the bad phrases and just tell me what you mean."

"And give up the only thing I actually like studying at school?" Mallory asked. No one was surprised when Mallory decided to major in English. It was the double-majoring with communications that was surprising. Apparently Mallory wanted to study something a little more practical as well. I watched her fold a couple of shirts and put them neatly away into a drawer. She tossed a wrinkled dress on the ground.

"Did Vanessa ever start rhyming when you guys had sex?" she asked, suddenly.

My mouth dropped open in the ridiculousness of the question and started to protest that we never actually went all the way when Mallory started giggling. I let out my protest unspoken in a whoosh of breath and started laughing too. It felt good; it felt like stretching out your legs and running after being cramped inside all day. I kind of wished that Mallory could still be my babysitter and take care of me like I was eight again; I was ready to relinquish all the worries weighing down on my mind, ready for someone else, someone older, to take them over. I wanted someone competent to just make all of my troubles go away. I didn't overlook the irony that it was Watson and Mrs. Engle, adults, that were making the trouble in the first place. But I didn't want to think about that right now so I let myself laugh with Mallory and temporarily, the weight was lifted from my shoulders. I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe if I tackle these problems, one by one, it's possible for things to go back to the way they were, just maybe.

O

I was leaving the Pike's place when Margo followed me to the front door.

"Here," she said, and pressed something into my hand. I looked down. It was my yearbook.

"Oh," I said. "Thanks. I thought I had lost it."

"I had a hard time finding a place to write something," Margo said. "You're pretty popular, Thomas."

"Shut up," I said, flipping through the pages. "You wrote something in it?" I looked up at her. She was kind of glaring at me again, like she was daring me to expect her to be embarrassed.

"That's what yearbooks are for, right?" she asked.

"You didn't even go to this school," I pointed out.

"Are you going to keep being an asshole or are you going to go home and help Karen set up for the party?"

That made me laugh.

"I'm going, I'm going," I said. I got into my car and pulled out of the driveway. Then I paused. I rolled down the window on the passenger side and leaned towards it.

"You're coming tonight, right?" I called.

Margo shrugged and turned around. She waved over her shoulder, wiggling her weird, double-jointed fingers, and slammed the screen door behind her. I pulled away then and started heading home. At a red light, I picked up the yearbook that was sitting innocently on the passenger seat. I flipped through it. The formerly blank pages were covered in a myriad of different colors. Some of them, I could pick out just by the writing. The round, cheerful writing in the clean, navy blue pen was Hannah. The ridiculous Sharpie pen that bled through several of the pages must have been Nick. Then I found a note on one of the last pages, cramped because of the surrounding notes that must have already been there when this person wrote their note. The writing was narrow, sharp, and small and the note wasn't signed with a name. I smiled as I began reading the note.

My smile suddenly froze and dropped off my face. I closed the yearbook and tossed it behind me, then thought better of it and searched for it. It had fallen underneath one of the seats and I could hear the cars behind me starting to honk. I looked up; it was a green light. I waved an apology and floored the accelerator. It was only until I got into my neighborhood that I could stop and search for the yearbook. I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned over the armrests and started digging. I pushed moldy tennis balls and graded homework away. How far could the yearbook have possibly slid underneath the seat? This was ridiculous.

"Hey David, what are you doing?"

I jumped, hitting my head on the back seat.

"What?" I looked up. It was Tiffany Kilbourne, standing at the passenger side of the car where the window was still lowered. She was dressed in an old pair of jeans and a tank top with dirty gloves. I realized I was parked in front of her house and she had been working on the landscaping of the yard. I heard her mom finds it embarrassing that Tiffany used to do all of the plant work and landscaping at their house but she actually likes it a lot, gardening, that is. Now that Tiffany spends most of the year away at some fancy Ivy League school, they've actually hired a gardener but Tiffany apparently promptly shooed him away when she came back.

"What are you doing?" A blonde eyebrow slid up and I felt foolish. Even dressed in scrubby clothes with dirt smeared on her arms and face, she was cool and composed. All of the Kilbournes were; they never did anything without losing that composure. Like Watson, they were an old family of Stoneybrook, stinking rich for way more generations than should be allowed. Stupid capitalism. For the most part, though, Tiffany was okay, a little snobby but okay. Maria was a little more normal and Shannon, who I never saw even when she used to live at home, seemed to be the most remote of all. I knew she was friendly with Kristy but I didn't know _how_. I've never seen her crack a smile.

"Looking for my yearbook," I said. "It slipped underneath the seat in the back, I think." Tiffany reached in the car and unlocked the back door. She peeled off her gloves and opened the back door and produced the heavy, hard cover book and handed it to me.

"My yearbook was less than half the size of that," she commented. It would be. She, along with the rest of the Kilbourne girls, and Amanda, Karen's friend, went to an elite private high school.

"Our school pictures are the size of my thumbnail," I said, offering a smile. She shrugged.

"Lucky you, then. I think I was in the middle of sneezing or blinking in every single one of mine and it was big and clear for everyone to see."

I smiled, maybe a little weakly. Tiffany kind of made me nervous.

"Well? Aren't you going home?" she asked.

"Oh, right. Yeah." I started the car and waved a little, feeling goofy, and headed towards my house.

"Did Mom leave?" I called, as I opened the front door.

"You just missed her," Karen called back. She sounded like she was in the kitchen.

"Where's Emily?" I asked, walking in.

"Here," Emily said. She was carrying a duffel bag. She was spending the night at Gabbie Perkins'.

"Need a ride?" I offered. Her hair was shiny and short, hitting her shoulders, and it bounced as she shook her head.

"No, Mrs. Perkins is picking me up in a little bit. You guys are having a party, huh?"

"No, why would you think that?" Karen asked, opening her eyes wide, a picture of exaggerated innocence. When she does that, she almost looks younger than Emily. Emily snorted.

"Right, because you guys have more potato chips here than our house could ever eat. Including Sam and Charlie."

The doorbell rang.

"That's Mrs. Perkins," Emily said. "See you tomorrow. Have fun, guys." And she left. Karen stared after her.

"Was _I _that precocious when I was twelve?"

"No," I admitted. When Karen was twelve, she was still attached to the hip to Kristy and cried for days on end when she left for college.

"She's way too mature," I said. "It kind of creeps me out."

"Is that your yearbook?" Karen asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah it is." I stared down at it.

"Can I see it?"

"No way," I said, almost a little panicked. "You don't want to read it. It's boring. You know, just one note after another telling me how awesome I am." Karen plucked the book from my hands but she didn't open it. She slapped me on the shoulder with it.

"Well fine then, put it upstairs and help me set up."

I walked up the stairs with the book in my hands; it felt like it was getting heavier with each step. I got to my room and thought to unceremoniously toss it on my bed, but thought better of it and stuck it between a couple of other hardcover books in my bookshelf. There; now it'll be easily overlooked. It's not like people come to other people's parties to snoop around their yearbook. That's silly.

I sat down on the edge of my bed for a second and paused. Yes. Tonight was going to be very interesting indeed.


	12. Chapter 12

**: Chapter Twelve :**

I walked back downstairs and heard Karen talking to Andrew.

"Nothing illegal or I'm sending you over to hang out with Hannah's little sister," she said.

"It's come down to threats, then?" I asked, entering the kitchen. "We don't have anything illegal."

"It's a big party," Karen said. "We can't stop anyone from bringing anything." That was a good point. While Karen was distracted, Andrew used the opportunity and escaped, cutting off any possibility of Karen furthering her lecture. I used the opportunity of privacy to try and get Karen to talk about her situation with her mom.

"Have you thought at all about the whole moving back thing with your mom?" I asked.

"No," she said. She sat down and idly picked up a potato chip from an open bag on the table. "Well yes, but not really thoroughly. I feel like not thinking about it will make it go away and I wish it would. Not necessarily because I don't want to move back with my mom but because I don't want to have to consider it in the first place."

"I want you to stay here," I said, impulsively.

"I want me to stay here too," Karen said. "But I also have unfinished business with my mom."

"It's not good to move away during your senior year, though," I argued. "Just at least finish up school here." Karen's mom lived a little ways out of Stoneybrook. She moved after the divorce. Seth lives in a condo in Stamford. I thought it was odd that neither of them kept the "little house" as Karen still absently called it but Karen didn't.

"Obviously my mom sold it for the money because she doesn't need a house with three bedrooms anymore," Karen had said.

"Does that bother you?"

"What?"

"That she sold her house…and the fact that she needs three bedrooms."

"What are you getting at, David?" Karen had asked, irritably. "I'm not as profound as you, spell it out."

"Well…do you think she kind of…sold away her responsibility to you and Andrew too when she sold the house?"

Karen had looked thoughtful, not offended, when I asked.

"If she did," she had said, finally. "Then I don't care because it wasn't worth much."

"What wasn't?"

But she wouldn't say what it was.

Through my brief reverie of that conversation, I realized Karen had been silent for a long time.

"I could still go to school here," Karen finally said. "If that's the only problem."

"It'd be a stupidly long commute," I pointed out. "You'd be polluting our already doomed earth unless you're planning on biking which I highly doubt."

"Is that why you want me to stay?" Karen demanded. "So I won't burn a new hole in the ozone layer?" She reminded me of Margo just then, challenging me but not outright. She was challenging me to admit to…admit to what I can't.

"What about Andrew?" I finally said.

"What about…" Karen started to repeat. She made an exasperate face. "Okay fine, never mind."

"What?" She didn't answer me but got up and pulled out large plastic bowls and started emptying the potato chips into it.

"What? I asked again. She kept silence. Karen developed this habit several years ago. When she was younger, she had a smartass retort for everything but she seemed to have realized how much more infuriating silence was. I grabbed the potato chip bag in her hand and tugged it towards me.

"Karen, come on, you can tell me," I said. Karen was looking at my hand that was still gripping the wrinkly potato chip bag. She looked up at me.

"I just thought that maybe- " Karen was cut off by the front door opening and slamming shut and I was…disappointed. And relieved. I wasn't sure if I could handle it if one of us finally did it, admit it, I mean. I wasn't sure what that would mean for us, if it would mean anything.

"Hey is this going to be a party or what?" Nick bellowed, from the front door.

"Karen?" another voice called. It was Hannah.

Karen looked at me one more time then dropped the potato chip bag. Disappointment won relief but I knew that that we wouldn't have a minute in private for the rest of the night.

* * *

It was a typical party. If someone was to have brought in a camera and replaced whatever is shown on T.V. these days on those cheesy teenage shows with what was recorded, no one would notice the difference. There were kids, a handful of alcoholic drinks that Karen had rightly predicted would appear, and loud music. The only things missing from the scene were kids shooting up in the bathroom, a couple of drunk girls making out in the middle of the living room, and the police knocking at the front door. But I didn't mind the absence of these little touches; the party was turning out to be laidback and mildly innocent, which was just what I liked.

"Hey David, is this your party?" I turned around. It was Amanda. She looked immaculate as usual; her highlighted, blonde hair was carefully curled and her shirt was neatly pressed.

"It was Karen's idea, actually," I said. "I think she's in the den, if you want to find her." I figured Karen must have invited her, or she must have heard about it somehow. It was a relatively nosy neighborhood. Everyone seemed to know everyone else's business, even if no one was particularly close to one another.

"Nice party, Thomas." Someone clapped me on the shoulder. I didn't recognize the other guy but I smiled and said thanks. Although I couldn't get a chance to talk to Karen, I still kept track of her. I had spotted her earlier, sitting on the arm of a sofa, talking to Bobby who was playing a video game with some other guys.

I wondered at that. If Bobby was here, did that mean that Rick was? And did Bobby know what was going on between Rick and Hannah? Bobby, though I still wasn't friends with him, was somewhat more decent than Rick and his friends. Or maybe I just assumed that because Karen seemed to insist on staying his friend.

I found Nick in the kitchen and joined him to watch the living room from there, getting myself a soda.

"What do you think?" I asked.

Nick shrugged. "It's okay. Kind of tame."

"I want it to be tame," I said. "I don't like messes, especially when I have to be the one to deal with them."

"Yeah, I know. That's why Bobby didn't let Rick come in until his pockets were emptied. Get this, though: he had a whole package of condoms stuck in his back pocket. How fucking cocky is that? Not to mention kind of gross."

I froze; my hand around the soda can was tightening, causing the thin can to give way under the pressure of my fingertips.

"Rick's here?" I asked.

"Sorry," Nick said, shrugging. "Everyone in our grade was supposed to be invited. Anyway, I heard Bobby tell him not to make trouble tonight so maybe he won't. He's been pretty quiet now, hasn't he?"

"Who the hell is Bobby supposed to be, Rick's handler?" I asked. "What he tells his friends is worth nothing. I don't trust him."

"I know you don't," Nick said. "You're the one that messed up Rick, didn't you?"

I stayed silent.

"Karen told me," Nick said. "Well, she said she suspected. You wouldn't tell her. Why not? You tell her everything."

"I do not," I said, defensively. "And since when were you two such good friends anyway?"

"So you did?"

"It's not important," I mumbled.

"With a swollen lip like that, it _better _be important," Nick shot back. "But fine. If you don't want to talk to me, then don't. But maybe you should talk to Karen since she's kind of offended, you know, that you didn't tell her."

"Maybe there's a reason why Karen shouldn't know," I snapped. I was not enjoying this party anymore, not since I heard that Rick was somewhere in my house, slithering around looking for his next victim. I left the kitchen then, and started walking around the house. Karen and her group was still in the den. I could hear laughter and music, coupled with the sound of video games, trickling up from the long staircase that led to the basement den.

I was passing by the living room, walking down the long hallway that led to the family room when suddenly, there was a change. I'm not sure when this change exactly happened. Perhaps several people talked over the growing silence, not realizing to lower and stop their voices. In a matter of moments, though, the people in the hallway were completely silent. The only noises came from the living room, or even further off in the den or upstairs. I hurried down the length of the hallway to the heavy wooden door that was slightly ajar and pushed it open.

As I had suspected, this trouble, like most others, stemmed from Rick. Even those in the room with him seemed to have only just realized what was going on, right in the middle of the room. Hannah was screaming, kicking at Rick to get off of her on the huge leather sofa. I didn't even wait to let the anger burn quickly in the bottom of my stomach; I crossed the room, grabbed a fistful of Rick's shirt, and pulled up and away from Hannah. Rick rolled, an inglorious heap on the floor.

"I thought I made this clear," I said. My voice was low and it felt like it carried, to the ears of the listeners in the room, to the ones in the hall, huddled at the doorway. I didn't want them to hear. I didn't want them to carry the news back down stairs to Karen.

"You don't touch her, okay?" I said. I nudged Rick a little with my foot, not too gently, when he didn't answer. He rolled away from me and stood.

"You don't touch her, you don't talk to her, you don't even look at her," I said. I could already feel my hands curling into fists, ready for a fight. Rick seemed to see them too. Somehow he maneuvered himself so that he stood between me and the doorway. I thought he was going to fight me, then. The room was filled with people that Rick knew better; it was his crowd, not mine. But it was also my house.

Suddenly, Rick held up his hands and gave me an infuriating smirk.

"Status quo, Thomas," he said, backing away from me and out of the room. "Don't rock the status quo."

And he was gone.

The room seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief as the tension left with Rick. They began to talk again, murmuring a little. The gossip was beginning.

"Don't talk about this," I said, to no one in particular. The humming of voices stopped. I had hoped I had some sort of power in this situation, if not only because it was my house and party.

"Don't," I said.

Hannah was sitting on the couch, her head in her hands. I held a hand out to her and after a moment of hesitation, she took it and I pulled her to her feet. I led her out of the room and the crowd parted like the Red Sea before us, like we were diseased. They refused to mingle with us, watching us as we past. I caught sight of Audrey's shocked face as we passed her; she was a fanatical gossip but I hoped she'd be able to keep her mouth shut for once.

I took Hannah to the unused powder room and shut the door behind us. She turned on the water and watched it gather in the marble bowl and hurry down the drain. We both listened to the sound of running water for awhile. Then she finally sighed and put her hands in it and put a careful amount of soap from the dispenser next to the faucet. She carefully worked the soap over each finger, scouring underneath every fingernail; she rubbed her hands raw, then rinsed them off and washed her face. I held out a fluffy sky blue towel when she was done.

"What are you going to do?" I finally asked.

Hannah's slender fingers twisted themselves into the fabric of the towel.

"What is there for me to do?" she asked, laughing. It was a hollow sound and I imagined it ringing in her ribs, bouncing in the empty space in her chest.

"You could report him," I suggested.

"No," she said. "I don't want to do anything. I just want to forget about it."

"Hannah, it's not right for him to do that," I said. "If you let him go, like this, he might even do it to someone else."

"Who?" Hannah demanded. "Who is stupid enough to let themselves get tangled with Rick? It's common knowledge that he's a sleaze."

"Then why did you?" I asked softly.

Hannah looked at me, then looked at the towel in her hands. She laughed again.

"Because I'm a whore."

I sighed and leaned back against the marble sink. "No you aren't."

"He was my best friend's boyfriend," she said. Her voice cracked and she was looked like she was about to cry again. "What else can you call me?"

"We all make mistakes," I said, somewhat pathetically.

"Pompous bullshit pity," she said, all in a row, like it was one big word. "I know you're looking down on me right now, David. Thanks for your pity but I don't want it."

"What do you want then?" I asked. I didn't question her on the pity. I pitied her and we both knew it.

"I want to pretend like it never happened and you're not helping." She shoved the towel back into my hands. "Leave me alone, David. You can't help me."

"You have to tell her sometime," I said.

"Do I?" she answered. Her eyes were cold and smooth. The promise of tears was replaced by steel. "And what good will come of that?"

"You'll hate yourself until you do."

She laughed again, a sharp, brittle laugh. "You don't know the first thing about me, David Michael Thomas. If you did, you'd know that that isn't much of a burden."

She started to leave and paused.

"You can't save everyone," she said to the hand resting on the doorknob. "So don't try. Don't hold your breath. You're just going to end up blue and frustrated."

Somehow, being alone in the bathroom felt less empty than when Hannah was there.


	13. Chapter 13

There was no one in the hallway eavesdropping when I slowly opened the heavy wooden door. I wondered where Hannah went; I realized it's possible she just went home. It is just across the street, after all. I walked through my house in a daze, like the place isn't a house I've lived in for ten years but new, foreign, unfamiliar terrain. My steps were cautious, as though I was recently recovering from an injury. I stumbled up the stairs, away from the noise, and my body led me to my room; my brain had shut down a long time ago. I shut the door behind me and sat on my bed. My eyes slowly worked its way across my room until I saw my music rack.

_Music_.

Yes, music. I'll get some music to take back downstairs and play it. Something mellow. Something sleepy. So sleepy…

I heard my door open but didn't bother turning my head to see who it was. Confident steps came closer until a pair of pointy black flats made their way into my line of vision.

"Hi David," Margo said. I didn't answer at first. I was so tired. Maybe I should just go to sleep. Maybe when I wake up, everyone will be gone and I'll be left with a clean empty house and a clean empty mind. A clean empty shell.

"I'm choosing some music," I said, with a sigh, lifting my head; I was resigned to the fact that Margo wasn't going to leave me alone. The effort that the simple movement of raising my head took was incredible. I watched Margo walk over to my music rack and examine the labels. There were so many tapes and c.d.'s that the rack couldn't hold all of them; some were precariously stacked next to it, ready to spill over any minute.

"Ew, what is _this_?" Margo asked. She was holding up a tape pinched between her thumb and forefinger like it was a rat. I got up heavily. Is this how I'm going to feel when I'm old and spent? I'm too young to feel like this now.

I walked over to her and looked at the title. "Cam Geary Sings: Christmas Special." I felt my face burn despite the odd hollowness I had been feeling two seconds earlier.

"Kristy was going to give it to Mary Anne," I said. "But she already had it so she gave it to me instead."

"And you _kept_ it?" Margo's voice was absolutely dripping with disdain.

"I never listened to it, okay?" I shot back, feeling much more like myself than I had been all night. And with the return of normality came remembrance.

"What were you thinking writing something like that in my yearbook?" I demanded.

"I gave it to you right after," Margo pointed out. "It was the last day of school. It's not like anyone else was going to see it."

"And you couldn't have just written me a note?" I asked. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"So it's true," Margo said, quietly. "And I thought, well hoped, that I was just imagining it with my morbid streak."

"What?" I asked, suspiciously."

"Look David," Margo said, looking at me with the fierce look back in her eyes, like that day at her house, where she told me she missed me; the challenge was back in her eyes. "You read my note. I know I'm not blonde or pretty. Polo shirts and pep rallies aren't my thing. But I like you. God knows why but I do. And I wanted you to know that because, well, I think you'd have an easier time convincing people it was kosher to date me. Than her."

"I don't-" I start, but Margo cut me off.

"There's no use in lying," she said. "Not to me. I won't tell but don't lie to my face like that."

I realized just then how close we're standing by each other, and how small Margo is. Karen isn't particularly short but Margo is. Margo only comes up to my shoulder and she is narrow and pointy. Pointy hair, pointy fingers, pointy bones sticking out at her wrist. Her collarbones are poking the thin straps of her black tank top.

And suddenly, the rush of unfamiliarity fell upon me again. It was the same exhilarating feeling I felt when we were talking on the Pike's front porch. The novelty of someone new in a tiny town like Stoneybrook. There's so many things I don't know about her and I suddenly realized, in a shocking rush, that I wanted to know. Really bad. I liked her. I couldn't deny that. But even so, Karen's face seemed to linger somewhere in the recesses of my mind, testing my loyalty. I tried to push it away. Margo was right; especially in a small town like Stoneybrook, I'd probably be lynched if I ever made a move on my stepsister. But I forgot all of this when I focused back onto Margo's eyes that were strangely soft, almost velvety, maybe, like the fabric of a worn stuffed animal. Not steely like Hannah or guarded like Karen's.

I realized Margo was breathing just as fast as me. If just one of us made a move, any move…the tension was building. This was scaring me. I wasn't used to not knowing what was going to happen next. At the same time, what could happen? She was a girl, I was a boy. Age-old story. I reached up to brush the hair away from her cheek and she jumped as though my touch shocked her.

I hesitated.

The door opened.

A shadowy figure was standing at the doorway with the light from the hallway spilling into the dark room, illuminating their silhouette but not their features.

"Oh, sorry I didn't…" the voice trailed off, probably assessing what was going on in the room.

I closed my eyes involuntarily. Of course. Who else would come to my room in the middle of a party?

"I couldn't find you," Karen said, her voice completely flat. "So I thought to check here to see if you're okay but I guess you were just a little busy." She seemed to hesitate, as though she wanted to say more but was unwilling or unable to, just as I was. My tongue felt as though it was severed, my brain short circuiting. All I could concentrate on was the heavy feeling of dread sinking into my stomach.

"Have…fun," Karen finally said; she sounded strained and it looked as though it took an inordinate amount of energy to leave the room and close the door behind her. Her footsteps faded away. I sank onto the bed, my face in my hands, not caring that Margo was still standing there in front of me, probably looking at me and my pitiful situation.

"Well, at least she likes you too," Margo finally said. She sat down on the bed next to me.

"It doesn't matter," I mumbled. Margo snorted.

"I'm speaking from personal experience here, David. Yes, it matters. Let me tell you, the one way street is a lot more bitter than a blocked two way street."

"You and Mallory are more alike than you think," I remarked, lifting my head.

"Oh really?" Margo looked at me with disbelief.

"You guys are sisters, after all."

We were silent again, just sitting on the bed listening to the faint music trickle up, our shoulders almost touching. We were both trying to breathe as quietly as possible.

"I'm sorry," I said, and didn't know why I said it.

"Me too," Margo said. "You're a cool person, David. A lot cooler than any one else in this dismal town."

"No I'm not," I said. "I'm just like everyone else. But you aren't. You get to go somewhere. You get to leave as soon as break is over."

Margo shrugged. "You'll leave soon enough, and when you do, you'll want to come back."

"I doubt it," I said.

"I'm speaking from personal experience," she said, again.

"You have a lot of experience then," I said, and felt one side of my mouth quirk up into a little smile. She smiled back and for a minute there, I didn't feel like I needed anything else. Just one friendly smile and one friend was the world to me right then.

* * *

The house was empty and eerily quiet, a marked difference from what it was earlier that night. Andrew was already sleeping, leaving Karen and me to clean up as quietly as possible. I was incredibly tired and I could tell Karen was too, by the dark bags beneath her eyes and the slow, careful way she moved. It was a little past four and the house still held telltale signs of a party.

"Here's some more garbage, take it to the garage," Karen said, throwing a full garbage bag into my hand, without looking at me. This was also making clean up take longer than necessary; Karen was avoiding me, avoiding working with me, avoiding touching me, looking at me, anything. And it was driving me crazy.

I dropped the garbage bag.

"Nothing happened, okay?" I said.

"I don't care," was the quick, automatic reply.

"Then why are you avoiding me?" I demanded.

"I'm trying to clean the house?" she said, as though it was the most obvious reason in the world. Well, her stubbornness wasn't going to win this time. I quickly followed after her as she was disappearing into the kitchen. I stopped her with a hand on the shoulder. She impatiently shrugged it off.

"Look, I don't care who you take up to your bedroom for your clandestine trysts, okay? So you can stop acting like I'm all broken up over the fact that you had some girl, _Margo_ none other, in your room."

"I got into a fight, okay? I got into a fight and I went to my room to cool off and get some music. Then Margo found me and we talked. And looked at music. That's _it _Karen."

She finally turned around to face me. Her blue eyes were like searchlights that seemed to examine my thoughts, my moment of wavering, my indecision. She saw it but she also saw the choice I had made; she didn't question me.

"Karen, this is me, David, remember? For how long have you always been the first priority in my life?" I ventured a little closer and put my hands on her arms. It's true; Mom and Watson found it almost odd how close we had become and how willing I was to always give Karen rides. We would go everywhere together; we were like twins, joined by some invisible bond that couldn't stretch longer than several feet.

"I know. But it still scares me sometimes," she whispered.

"It scares me too," I said. Suddenly, before I realized what was happening, Karen raised herself very carefully onto her tiptoes and pulled my head down. She stopped, as though she was making sure I wasn't about to back out. We both looked at each other as though this was it; we do this now and there was no turning back. We wouldn't be innocent any more; from this point on, we would be guilty of anything they would accuse us of. We would be marked forever.

And I didn't care.

I leaned down a little to close the distance and very gently kissed her. It was like the weird dreams you have, where you remember you remembered the dream but you're so far removed from it now and all you're left with is the vague images and emotions, just out of reach. It was like that so that the minute we pulled apart, I was dazed and questioning what happened.

So I did the only thing I could think of to cure it. I kissed her again.


	14. Chapter 14

Karen was sleeping, breathing softly and evenly, golden hair spilled on my pillow. I watched her for a minute, standing at the doorway, then left her in the darkness, closing the door behind me quietly. I realized there was still a huge pile of dishes to do and resigned myself to the fact that I would be the one to clean them. Silently padding by Andrew's room, I suddenly felt something warm press against my leg.

"Hey Shannon," I whispered, and put my hand down. She nuzzled my open palm. I realized Karen must have let her back in from the garage, where we put her during the party.

"Sorry we left you out there," I said, as we slowly walked down the stairs. "The party was lame, though," I added. Shannon sniffled my fingertips in response.

I realized that the dishwasher might wake Karen and Andrew up so I pulled on the rubber gloves and began to manually soap up each dish. I worked methodically, not really thinking but letting all thoughts mercifully cease in concentrating on doing this menial task. Soap. Scrub. Pump a few drops of dishwashing liquid onto the sponge. Repeat. I didn't want to think right now; my mind felt full and aching and I wasn't ready to unpack my thoughts. I was done washing all of the dishes and was in the process of rinsing them off and loading them into the dishwasher to dry when I heard the front door open and close. Frowning, I peeled off my gloves and walked towards the foyer.

"Mom? Watson?" I called, softly. I wasn't expecting either of them until tomorrow evening at the earliest.

"David?" The foyer light turned on and I found Kristy standing by the large double doors, bags at her feet. My sister was never an easy person to love or get along with and age hadn't changed that. She was still willful, stubborn, and bossy, five feet and three inches of pure work.

"What are you doing home?"

"Nice to see you too," she said, then frowned. "Mom called. She sounded a little stressed on the phone."

"Oh?" We walked back to the kitchen and flicked the foyer light back off. Kristy, assuming authority as she always does, made us both hot chocolate and we sat down at the granite counter, resting our elbows on the cold stone.

"She said she needed me home as soon as possible; I took the first train back here," she said. Kristy was still a senior, taking a fifth year of college to finish her double degree, at NYU.

"She's not going to be back until tomorrow night, at the earliest," I said. "At least, that's what I remember."

Kristy shook her head. "She said she changed her plans; she's coming home tomorrow morning."

"So something's wrong?" I asked.

"She never says she needs us," Kristy said, raising an eyebrow, ignoring my question. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," I said, bewildered. "I just asked you. She seemed fine when she left. Or actually wait." I frowned. "I didn't see her leave today; Karen did. But I'm sure Karen would have mentioned something if Mom seemed off."

"Karen's also not the most perceptive of people," Kristy pointed out. That was true; Karen was pretty unobservant, or self interested.

"Well, I don't know, she didn't give me any hints on the phone," Kristy said. "Are you sure there's nothing going on? How are things with her and Karen and Andrew? With you? Emily Michelle? Watson? Shannon and Pumpkin?"

I laughed a little at the last one then stopped abruptly.

"Wait," I said, suddenly recalling, with great detail, what happened at the café. I suddenly felt hesitant to tell Kristy. Telling her would make it a problem and I wanted to push it away and pretend it never happened. I wavered again with indecision; I never knew myself to be such an uncertain person until tonight.

"Out with it, David. You know you can't keep anything from me," Kristy ordered.

Well that settled it.

"This isn't anything for sure so we shouldn't be jumping to conclusions," I said warily. "But I saw Watson with Mrs. Engle earlier today."

"Mrs. Engle? Karen's mom?" Kristy asked. "And?"

"And that's it," I said. "I told you, we shouldn't be jumping to conclusions. But Margo thought it looked suspicious because they were all the way out in this little café in Stanford. And they were holding hands. I don't remember but they might have left by the same car too."

"Whoa, wait, they were holding _hands?_" Kristy asked. "Describe it."

"I don't know," I said. "It looked…out of place, yeah. They had their hands on the table, Watson's on top of hers. It looked…"

"Disgustingly romantic?" she supplied.

"Yeah," I said, sighing. "Unfortunately."

"And they were in Stanford, which is a lot safer for a rendezvous than somewhere in Stoneybrook where they have a better chance of being seen."

"That's what Margo thought too," I said.

Kristy's eyebrows flew up to her hairline again. "Wait a minute, what were _you _doing in Stanford at a café with Margo? You mean Margo the absentee Pike, right?"

"That's irrelevant," I snapped.

"Since when have you become such a Casanova anyway?"

"I'm _not," _I said, irritably. "There's nothing going on and everyone keeps acting like there is."

"Sure. Well, so I'm here now. Mom says she'll be back early tomorrow." Kristy checked the time on the digital clock behind our heads. "Well, later today. I already told you that, didn't I? Anyway, what are you doing up so late anyway?" Her eyes fell on the sink. "What are you doing staying up doing _dishes_? Was it at least a good party?"

Nothing gets past Kristy.

"Nah, it was lame," I said. I suddenly consider telling Kristy all that went down but I shake it away. I don't want to think about it yet.

"Yeah, it was dumb but tame. Nothing's broken," I said. "But there is a stain on one of the chairs in the living room."

"Those are Watson's favorite!" Kristy cried. "They're like family heirlooms."

I shrugged. They looked like typical carved wood, brocade cushioned chairs to me.

"Well…I'll try to get the stain out before Watson comes home," she said.

"He probably won't notice either way," I pointed out.

Kristy frowned. "That's true. Is he still working overtime? He shouldn't be, at his age."

"And do you want to be the one to tell him that?" I shot back.

Kristy smiled. "Oh, and Charlie and Sam are coming in later this week."

I shrugged. I was never very close to them, considering the nine and eight year age difference. "Great," I said, somewhat unemotionally.

"I can finish the dishes," Kristy offered. "If you had a party, you must be tired."

"But you just rode the train here from New York," I said. "Nah, I'll finish them. You go to bed."

Kristy looked like she was about to argue more but then just patted me on the shoulder.

"Thanks for growing up a little, David," she said.

I scowled. That was a typical Kristy compliment; she managed to be condescending and fall half way. "A little?"

"You know what I mean," she said and got up. She walked to the sink and poured out the rest of her hot chocolate. "Good night."

* * *

I woke up the next morning to an empty house. Sometimes the house can get a little eerie when it's empty, probably because it's so big and old. Stumbling down to the kitchen, I found Kristy and Mom sitting at the table, talking quietly with some half eaten toast between them. They each held a steaming mug of coffee.

"Morning," I said, then checked the clock. It was eleven-thirty.

"Good morning David," Mom said. "Karen wanted me to tell you she went over to Hannah's."

"Okay," I said. Kristy gave me a weird look that I couldn't really interpret but I ignored it. It is a well known fact that Kristy has about a million things going on in her mind so that chances are, if she looks at you weird, she's probably thinking about something else. I made myself some cereal and sat at the counter to slowly eat. Kristy and Mom didn't really resume their conversation but instead looked at me expectantly, as if they were either expecting me to entertain them or leave them.

"I…forgot something upstairs," I mumbled, and grabbed my bowl of cereal and left the room. As I did, I heard them resume their conversation. Although I would be a liar if I didn't say I wasn't a _little _bit curious as to what they were talking about, I still forced myself to walk up the stairs and finish my breakfast at my desk, feeling a little put out and offended inside my own house.

The phone rang, startling me into dropping my silver spoon into the bowl where it clattered. It rang twice before I realized Kristy and Mom weren't going to pick it up. I picked it up from my own extension.

"Hello?"

"Come to Washington Mall."

I chuckled, recognizing the voice even though we hadn't talked on the phone before. "May I ask who's calling? I'm afraid David Thomas is very much in demand," I said, in a mocking, pompous voice.

"Shut up you loser," Margo said. "I'm here with Claire but she just ditched me for that heinous Jenny Prezzioso. And let me tell you, nine years hasn't changed the way she dresses."

"She's still wearing dresses and straw hats?"

"This one was felt," she said. "And it had fake flowers and a fake model ship on it."

"Fake model ship? I thought they only put those on those 18th century British wigs," I said.

"Well Jenny could learn a thing or two about 18th century British politeness," she snapped. "Anyway, so Claire left with her and now I'm cramped into this godforsaken payphone box that I had to wait twenty minutes to use. And some old man in a tweed jacket is giving me the finger for taking too long so are you going to come here or are you going to sit there and live with the fact that I wasted the only money I have on me to call you?"

"Geez, alright, I'll come," I said, although I was smiling when I said it. I was glad that Margo couldn't see my smile through the phone. "Where do you want to meet?"

"Bean and Leaf," she said, promptly. Of course she would pick the only café inside the mall. I was beginning to think she had a coffee addiction.

"Be there in twenty minutes," I said.

"Twenty? It better be ten."

"Do you want me to smash my car into some telephone pole?" I argued. "Then it'd take me even longer to show up."

"Well hurry," she demanded. "The old man is giving me the finger again. I think I'm going to beat him up while I wait for you."

"He's a senior citizen!" I cried, in mock horror, and she hung up. I changed quickly and grabbed my wallet and keys. I went down the stairs and stopped by the kitchen only to briefly tell Mom and Kristy that I was going out; they barely turned to look at me and wave goodbye. I still felt mildly slighted but I ignored the feeling.

I was pulling into the Washington Mall parking lot only fifteen minutes later. I had never been to Bean and Leaf before but it was always full of moody Stoneybrook teenagers that wrote in black moleskin journals. Probably bad poetry. It was a sad example of counterculture in tiny little Stoneybrook, yes, but it was also, as aforementioned, the only place in the mall that served coffee.

Margo was sitting at a table, skinny legs crossed, shaking one of her feet sporadically with a cup of coffee in front of her.

"Hi," I said, sliding into a seat.

"What do you think?" she asked, showing me her wrist. She was wearing a gigantic white watch that was so big the face took up the entire width of her skinny wrist. It looked ridiculous.

"Claire said it looked like it was eating my wrist whole," she said. "But whatever. It's not like Claire is the connoisseur of watch aesthetics or something."

All of the Pikes had the same weird way of talking where they slipped into what sounded like English class vocabulary words. It was one thing to hear Mallory, Vanessa, or even Margo talk like that; Mallory and Vanessa were both into writing and English and Margo seemed intelligent (or maybe just intimidating). On the other end of the ballpark, it is just not natural to hear Nick say, "Haley Braddock is the perfect amalgamation of cute and sexy." I kid you not. I called Nick out on it once. He blamed it on listening to older siblings drill each other on SAT vocabulary words for the last three years. I was still a little bitter over the fact that Nick had scored higher than me on the verbal section of the SAT; he got a 770. I got a 740.

"I like it," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "You're lying."

"Okay fine, it looks pretty ridiculous," I said. "But I still like it."

Margo smiled, satisfied, and drained the rest of her coffee.

"It glows in the dark," she said. I looked at it again; definitely ridiculous.

"Anything new with your philandering parents?" she asked.

"No," I shot back, a little miffed that she'd bring it up so lightly. "But Kristy's home. She's worried."

"Kristy? I like her," Margo said. "She used to baby-sit me. Well, and the rest of the Stoneybrook-under-ten population but still."

"You would like her," I said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"Birds of a feather…" I let my voice trail off and she flicked a napkin at my face.

"So she knows?" Margo prompted.

"I told her last night; she thought something was up because Mom called her and asked her to come home. And Mom canceled her trip or came home early or something because when I woke up, she and Kristy were in the kitchen having breakfast."

"Hmm," Margo mused, chewing on the edge of her paper cup.

"That's gross," I said. She didn't even dignify it with a response. Instead, she nibbled on the cup for a little longer then suddenly stood up.

"Let's look around," she said.

We mingled around the mall; it was fairly empty considering the weather was insanely hot so everyone was probably outside enjoying it. We wandered into a shop that was full of trendy, young clothes and Margo zeroed in on a rack of discount jackets and started pulling them on haphazardly.

"Why are you looking at jackets?" I asked. "It's like seventy degrees outside."

Margo scowled at me. "You obviously don't think in long term, do you? You buy things out of season for cheap then wait to wear them, Thomas. I guess you never had to since Watson's so rich."

Coming from any other Pike, the comment would have been awkward.

"I like this one," I said, pulling out a dark blue jacket. It had large buttons down the front that looked like shiny dark candy.

"That would also fit a circus in it," she pointed out. I checked the size; it was a medium.

"It's not my fault you're freakishly stunted," I said.

Margo was about to open her mouth for another retort when she was cut off by a familiar laugh.

"Is that…?"

"This would be a store Lindsey would shop in," I said, and we leaned around the rack to search, discretely, for the source.

By the dressing rooms, in front of the three mirrors set up in front of a short pedestal was Lindsey, trying on a sparkly, bubblegum pink dress. She was fingering the thin spaghetti straps of the dress, flipping her blonde hair and looking like she just won prom queen.

"What do you think?" she was asking, to the person sitting on the couch in front of her, legs propped up on the small coffee table with magazines. Even though I could only see the back of his head, I had a sinking suspicion of who it was.

"I think we should go," I said.

"No way," Margo protested. "I want to see if her palms are still orange."

"No, I really think we should just go," I hissed, trying to be as forceful as possible without making a scene.

"And you are being unreasonable and weird," she said, and followed me complacently out of the store.

"Are you going to tell me what put you off to weird?" she asked, once we were well away.

"I just didn't feel like talking to her," I said, and Margo seemed to accept that.

All of my efforts to avoid Lindsey and Mr. Mulberry were in vain, though, since we ran into them while getting smoothie. Lindsey's eyes widened when she saw us and coughed, surprised.

"Hi David," she said, pointedly ignoring Margo.

"Hey," I said. We looked at each other for a minute. I noticed Mr. Mulberry now had a shopping bag, from the store I had last seen them, slung over his shoulder. Well…this was quite awkward.

"Is this your boyfriend?" Margo asked.

"What?" Mr. Mulberry yelped. A vein bulged in his temple as he nervously rubbed his neck. When he pulled his hand away, I noticed it left a red mark on the ruddy skin of his neck. Lindsey laid a hand on his arm and kind of scowled at him.

"Mr. Mulberry's just helping me find a dress for my cousin's wedding," she said. "He's friends with my aunt."

"Oh. I thought he looked too old for you," Margo said. I swear she was making the situation even more awkward on purpose. Lindsey and Mr. Mulberry flushed nervously even more.

"Well, have fun shopping," I said, somewhat lamely, and pulled Margo by the crook of her elbow away.

"They are totally having sex," Margo said.

"Please never force me to come to Washington Mall again," I said.

"Only if you stop lying to me," she snapped.

"Deal."

* * *

**a/n:** I'm really sorry for the delay; I've been trying to upload this chapter for a really long time but the site has been giving me some problems. 


	15. Chapter 15

I'm lying on a lounge chair in front of Melody's pool. Karen and Amanda sit next to me and I wonder if Amanda feels odd sometimes, coming back to her old house and seeing someone else's furniture, someone else's life, all laid out where hers used to be. A few years back, Amanda moved back to the outskirts of our neighborhood, where the houses suddenly grow from mansions to monstrously large estates. I'm pretty sure her family owns the neighboring acres as well, calling them a backyard. She still walks around the place as if she owns it though; Amanda is the type of girl that is comfortable in any setting, making everyone else around her _un_comfortable.Since we all live the closest, we're the earliest ones here at Melody's house. I figure we're waiting on the usual crowd although I'm not sure about the specifics of who's showing up.

"I would have used yellow cushions," Amanda remarks. We're all sitting on sky blue and cream striped ones. "This color clashes with the Moroccan décor. _We_ used yellow cushions." I catch Karen's eye and we both exchange identical annoyed expressions. Maybe she's just unhappy that her swimsuit, orange with a delicate gold chain, looks pretty heinous against the blue. I wouldn't put it past her to notice something like that. A large white hat shades her face but she's starting to look red on the tops of her shoulders; noticing this, she picks up a bottle of sunscreen and slowly starts to work it over her arms and legs.

"Karen, I can't reach my back. Put some sunscreen on it; I don't want to burn," she says. It's an order, not a request. Karen shoots me another look and swings her legs over to the other side and complies. Amanda returns the favor, however, and I have to force myself to look away from the two of them. Instead, I set my cold soda on the ground next to my chair and jump into the water on the deep end, swimming as far down as I can before I have to come back up for air. The water feels deliciously cool and perfect and I float on my back like a lazy, bloated carcass. Although it's only eleven in the morning, it's already becoming almost unbearably hot. We're reaching record temperatures; Watson keeps talking about how the lawn is turning yellow and what we all need to do to fix that. He is so incredibly dull sometimes it kills me.

I feel someone paddle by me, then suddenly my ankle is grabbed and I'm submerged. When I surface, I hear Melody shrieking with laughter, at _me,_ which, obviously can't be tolerated. So I shoot off towards her and grab her and dunk her. When she comes back up, she launches herself onto my back and I'm turning in the water to try and disentangle myself from her. I probably swallow about a liter of swimming pool water. We call a truce and Melody fetches a floating, inflated raft. She's like that; she still prefers playing and splashing in the water to sunbathing and reading with the other girls.

"Move over," I said, trying to climb onto the raft.

"No room, you jerk," she said, and shoved me back, which caused the truce to be promptly broken. By the time we get a second truce, basically instated because we both want drinks, I notice more people have arrived and are sitting around the pool. Melody and I both climb out of the pool, dripping heavily. She squeezes her ponytail on me and I resist the urge to push her back into the water. Instead, I grab two new sodas from the deck bar and toss one over to her. We make our way over to the group of people that have gathered by the deck chairs where Karen and Amanda are still sitting.

"When did you guys get here?" I ask, and push my way over to the seat that Karen's sitting on. I think she faintly blushes even though it's hard to tell in the sun. And no one else finds it weird; they're used to us being comfortable like that. Like siblings. I fully stretch out on the chair and Karen shifts and perch on the side, both feet flat on the ground. I flick water from my fingers onto the small of her back and she gives me a murderous look.

"Like twenty minutes ago but you were too busy trying to drown Melody," Nick says. He's sprawled on the ground on a beach towel; Lindsey is sitting close to him and his hand is carelessly on her thigh. I try not to raise an eyebrow at that; we have an incestuous group of friends, I will admit. But Stoneybrook would breed that; it's so small that anyone you hook up with is bound to be someone you've known for ages and someone your two best friends have already hooked up with. I try to be hopeful; maybe this means Lindsey's dumped Mr. Mulberry.

I notice that Margo's not with him but then again, I don't think a pool party is exactly her thing anyway.

"Trying is the key word," Melody says. "Besides, I bet David drank more pool water than me."

"That's real mature," Lindsey says sarcastically.

"And whose house are we at right now?" Myriah immediately snaps. She's wrapped up in a sarong like last year but it only covers her legs; her collarbones poke the straps of her bathing suit and her shoulder bones are too prominent.

"Can you guys _not _bicker for two seconds?" Karen says, tired and automatic.

Jackie's sitting a little off to the side from the circle and I'm surprised he showed up at all, considering he's been MIA for what seems like the past month. Everything about him seems dispassionate and exhausted; even his hair looks a duller red. He's dressed in a long sleeved t-shirt and khaki cargos, which at first I pass off as typically weird Jackie behavior but I remember Karen's comment from a few days ago and suddenly I'm incredibly angry. I don't know exactly what at: some of my friends' inability to function normally or the rest of us ignoring that they can't.

We all know it. We just don't do anything about it.

The fence door opens, causing all of us to turn around. Hannah is standing there with a towel drooping loosely from one hand. Her hair is pulled back and her eyes are covered by dark sunglasses. She's trying hard to look like nothing's wrong and we let her.

"Hey Hannah," we all chorus, as she walks over. It's so painfully awkward; it was even before Hannah showed up. Since when did all these schisms in our friendship begin? We try to compensate for it in our own different ways. Eric and Nick talk in extra loud voices; Lindsey laughs too long and too readily at anything that could remotely be considered funny. It's all so forced and pathetic and suddenly, I feel incredibly lonely.

As though she can feel my unhappiness, Karen turns her head to me and smiles, brushing her hand very quickly across my stomach. Her touch chills me and I have to smile back. I tell myself to snap out of it; there's still people that I'm close to, people that haven't changed. Karen. Margo. Kristy.

Still, I'm almost relieved when I realize I need to go to the bathroom and I sit up. I've been to the Korman's so often that I don't even really need to say anything; I just disentangle myself from the group and pass through the glass sliding doors. I take extra time, washing my hands, examining my face, checking the time, and finally make my way back to the backyard. As I pass by the living room, someone grabs my wrist and pulls me into the room, behind a large, decorative tree. It's potted and tropical and I have no idea how the Kormans keep it alive in our lovely, Connecticut temperate weather.

"I know you know, David," Lindsey says, staring hard at me.

Oh shit.

I play dumb. "Uh know what?" I say, unconvincingly. She's wedged me into the little space there is between the tree and the corner it's sitting by, and she's blocking my only escape route.

She gives me an exasperated look.

"Okay fine," I say. "But what are you thinking? You know it's illegal, right?"

Lindsey rolls her eyes. "I'm over the age of consent. It's not illegal; there's the step rule in Connecticut."

She could be bullshitting for all I know but I wouldn't put it past her to know an inordinate amount of information about who she can legally have sex with.

"Okay fine, you can still get him fired."

"Not if we're not caught," she says. "David please. You can't narc on us."

To be honest, the possibility of telling the authorities or something didn't really occur to me. Typical egotistical teenaged behavior; we think we're the be all, end all, and our problems need to be solved among ourselves. My silence, apparently, causes Lindsey to think the opposite though.

"Oh my god," she whispers. "Please David, don't. I…"

I stay silent only because I'm curious as to what she could possibly justify herself with.

"I'll give you a favor if you don't tell," she says, and I feel as though she forces herself to look at me when she says it. I suddenly feel the breath rush out of my body. Apparently she wasn't thinking about how to justify herself at all, only how to bribe me.

Saying it seems to give her more courage because she looks at me straight in the eyes and says, "You won't regret it, I promise. I know I'm good." I already know that she is, or at least, apparently she is according to all the guys at school. It's no secret that Lindsey is the most promiscuous out of all of us. In a moment of drunken lucidity, I remember Nick saying, "It's because she's not as hot. She thinks she needs to do it to make us like her" 'us' meaning apparently half of the boys at school. But, even so, it seems true, unfortunately true. Despite her carefully highlighted and straightened hair, her meticulously applied make-up, it doesn't seem to be enough against Myriah's blonde curls and long legs, or Hannah's shiny, long dark hair and naturally tanned skin. Lindsey holds nothing particularly memorable in her features; she is who she is through time and effort. And she knows this. She knows this and so there's rumors every month about who she hooked up with behind the bleachers after the basketball game, about who she was seen making out with at the back of the theater, whose car she was seen coming out of after lunch break. And we all just turned a blind eye again.

"I'll do it, I'm not lying," she says. "Just give me a ride home later."

"Are you crazy?" I demand. "Shit Lindsey, what kind of person do you think I am?"

She looks embarrassed and ashamed and wraps her arms around her body.

"I won't tell, not because you'll go down on me, but because I'm your friend," I continue. "Because I'm your _friend_ and I trust you to do the right thing and even if you don't it's your life."

I dare to touch her then, to push past her, and stalk out back outside, feeling even lower than I did before.

* * *

"Wait, so she actually propositioned you?" Margo asks. She throws a piece of popcorn at my head. We're sitting in my room, beating the heat of the late afternoon with popsicles and a bag of microwaveable popcorn I found in the pantry. I don't want to know how old it is but it tastes legit.

"That's kind of hot," Margo says.

"It's kind of like prostitution, you pervert," I snap back.

"Which makes it even hotter."

"You're so sick." Even as I say it, I can't help smiling. Since when did I make jokes with Nick's younger sister? Since when did I rather hang out with the weird, MIA Pike kid instead of playing Frisbee with Nick and Eric? Apparently I do since I'm sitting here on my bed, actually enjoying myself.

"How do you even know you're having sex?" I ask Margo.

She gives me an exasperated look. "Why else would the man risk his job and reputation?"

Margo rolls over on her back and puts her feet up against the wall.

"You should have done it and then gotten the full story from her."

"What full story?"

"You know, like how they met. Who's the pleaser in bed. Whether Mr. Mulberry looks hot naked. You know, juicy stuff like that."

"Gross, Margo," I say, and an involuntary grimace actually makes its way onto my face. "I don't think any of us need or want to know any of that."

"I do. I want to know if Mr. Mulberry has hairy legs or not. It's a sign of virility, you know."

"Then _you_ can seduce Lindsey and find out yourself," I scoff, and give her a little push, causing her to topple over.

We're kind of quiet for a while, munching on the popcorn, our discarded popsicle sticks between us. Then, Margo rolls onto her stomach so she can look at me.

"You know, Thomas, you're a little too cool for a place like Stoneybrook."

"Why thank you Miss Pike," I say, in a pompous voice.

"I'm serious, you jerk," she says. "You need to get out of this shithole. This place seriously sucks the life out of you until you turn into a suburban zombie."

"Yes, and since I have so many options, I guess I'll just pack up and move."

"I'm transferring to a private school in New York next fall, on scholarship. You should go too."

"Right."

"I'm not kidding; I've been talking to Kristy about it. She might let me stay at her apartment as long as I pay rent and not live like a pig."

"She would. You guys are like the same person."

"Well, the school I'm looking at is like, two blocks away from her place. I stayed with her when I took the school tour."

"Yeah but you're a literary genius. I'm about as average as you can get."

"They have a summer program; people don't know about it so not that many people apply. I bet you could get it. You should do it, or at least, spend the rest of summer in New York with me."

"I don't know."

"Well what would you do here? Go to the community swimming pool? Get wasted every weekend at a different person's house? Sounds like a great time. Come to New York and I'll show you a real party."

I have to admit, Margo makes a convincing argument.

"And please, Thomas, you are not average. Don't sell yourself short like that; it pisses me off."

I catch her hand in my own, suddenly and not thinking. She looks at me, surprised.

Then there's a loud crashing noise, from downstairs, like someone threw something at a window.

We run downstairs and I see something outside the dining room window. Margo and I climb out the window, not bothering to go to the kitchen to the door that leads to the backyard, and I pick it up. It's heavy and it's made a crack in the window. Upon further inspection, I realize it's a rock covered in a piece of paper. I snap off the rubber band and smooth out the paper. It's a note.

_Incest is best, isn't it, D? _


End file.
